Family Legacy
by Varigos D. Vastitas
Summary: My Dad was many things: careless, reckless and a dreamer. As a family we had a plan, to save the world. I still can't believe how many idiots think he would just leave me in a Vault with no explanation!
1. Escape!

Waking up to alarms and the sounds of distant gunshots was soon to be my least favorite way of waking up. I looked around my tiny room. Lights were blaring, people were yelling in the halls. I started listing every swear word I could come up with, dearest daddy James must have gotten caught working on the project. I looked underneath my bed, spotting and retrieving an obsidian case.

"Dad and his overpowered security measures..." I muttered aloud.

Like I had been drilled to do multiple times I entered a twelve digit code into a side panel. The case opened with a hydraulic hiss, revealing its contents.

One military grade sniper rifle, broken into its base parts, and six clips of .308 armor piercing ammo.

One winterized 10mm pistol, a remnant of the Alaskan war. Only two clips went with it, I chuckled, only twenty four shots to survive in the wastes? Thank god Dad provided a silencer to go with it.

Beside the pistol lay a Chinese style sword, encased in a rubber lined iron sheath. If the blade didn't have the rubber lining on the sheath I would have shocked myself a dozen times over as I lay it on my bed. The sword was an electrified work of Chinese art and American spoils of war.

Next out of the case was a black full body suit. All black, nearly bulletproof, and looked like it belonged to a cyborg ninja. Despite common sense and my urge to rush, I took a moment to study the armor. It was Dad's greatest gift to me, Mom's design from old pre-war tech. A Heavily modified Chinese stealth armor. Mom and Dad used all their knowledge to make it. The part I loved the most when Dad first told me about it was the stealth field it could generate.

I snapped out of my trance, the gunshots were getting closer. Whatever was happening in the vault was getting closer. I grabbed a set of matching throwing knives from the box, they weren't my first choice of weapon.

With a sigh I unpacked the remainder of the box. With a shitload of speed.

A dozen samples of different meds. Med-x, stimpacks, rad-away, the basics for survival. Particularly in the capital of America's post apocalyptic wasteland.

A grenadier's belt, with six frag grenades, two plasma, two pulse grenades, and two incendiary grenades. A dozen explosives for the survivor... "Guess dad didn't hold back..." I muttered aloud.

I pulled a tan survival bag from the box and stuffed the supplies in the pack. I undressed from my tacky over-worn 'vault 101' jumpsuit. I felt a twinge of anticipation, like every nineteen year old human male, I have had fantasies of what I would do if invisible. The suit was slightly cold, incredibly tight against my skin, and slightly tough to move in, but in my mind was _so_ worth it.

I strapped the 10mm into a hip holster fit into the suit, the sword was strapped along my back and the sniper rifle was reconstructed and secured with a strap. The throwing knives went into the stealth suit's boots, two perfectly formed grooves held both blades tight were I couldn't feel them pressing against my legs. I packed the grenades into the bag, and strapped it onto my back, where they covered the sword and rifle.

I looked into a mirror hanging on my wall, examining myself. I had to admit, apart from the bag, I looked bad ass.

The door to my bedroom opened with a quick hiss.

"Louis, Wake up! " A frantic feminine voice exclaimed. My old classmate and best friend entered my bedroom, just as I pulled on the orange dome helmet of the stealth suit.

She stared at me in shock, my appearance an impossibility for a vault dweller. I drew the pistol in a fluid, well practiced motion, and grabbed her. I covered her mouth, tight enough so she couldn't make a sound. I kept the gun pointed at her and kicked the door switch with the heel of my left leg.

The door slid shut with a clank.

I released Amata from my grip and she fell to the floor, with panic in her eyes. I kept the gun steady, I'd trained all my life for this moment. I couldn't fail my family now.

I cocked the gun, my finger lay on the trigger. All I had to do was pull it.

"Louie?" She questioned. I swore, I always hated that nickname. It was her pet name for me. I always wanted her to pick a new one but she never changed it.

To my eternal damnation, and future grief, I didn't pull the trigger. That decision would bite me in the ass more times than I would ever count on.

I looked at her behind the solid orange visor of my mask, "I'm sorry."

She barely had a moment to panic before I slammed her head into the reinforced steel of the vault walls. She slumped, out cold. I checked her injury, a large bruise, but no broken bones or bleeding.

"Sorry sweetheart, but I've gotta leave."

With a final glance, I left the miniature apartment I had inhabited for eighteen years. It was no surprise to me that I barely got a few feet from my front door before the vault security showed up.

The guard took one glance at me, and yelled, "Stop! In the Name of the Overseer!"

He charged at me, with a police baton in hand. I raised my pistol and shot him in both knees.

He dropped, screaming in pain. The bullets distracted him from the fact he had a gun of his own. I took two more shots, crippling him at the elbows. He screamed louder, and as I was taught, I didn't care.

I grabbed the potential quadriplegic by his collar and lifted him up, the augmented strength from the stealth suit let me lift him, one handed, with ease. "Whats happening?" I demanded, my voice was mechanical all thanks to the helmet's air filters.

The guard looked ready to shit himself, still moaning over his limbs. I dropped him to the floor and pointed my gun between his eyes, which got his attention.

"What is happening in the vault?" I asked.

The guard split his guts. "The overseer wanted me to grab Dr. Sypher's kid. Sypher left the vault this morning and took a load of supplies with him!"

I smiled, unseen behind the mask. "Why the alarms? Is something else going on?"

"When James left the Vault the nest of rad-roaches outside got in, and a second group came up from the reactor. The roaches are swarming the Vault."

"Good." I pulled the trigger. The silencer did its work, and the guard passed on into blissful eternal silence.

I said a quick prayer, the man didn't deserve to die, but I couldn't let my presence be spotted. For all I knew I might have to come back someday.

I tapped a few switches on my pip-boy, and the gauntlet computer gave my command to the suit. With a simmer of air and sound, I turned transparent to the naked eye. I walked away from my first victim, my conscience silent.

I walked down the corridors, empty apart from the occasional roach or guard. I kept low, staying silent. A few of the doors were deadlocked, prompting a tourrettes veteran exclamation of "Fuck!", and forcing me to re-route though the overseers' emergency route rather than straight to the front door.

I got past the diner, ran past the generators, and made it up to the administration hallway when I heard trouble.

"Amata, tell me where he is right now!" I would recognize that arrogant voice. Amata's father, the asshole overseer.

"Dad, I don't know! He was in some kind of black suit! He had all these guns and a bag filled with stuff!"

"Amata. Either you tell me the truth rather than these lies, or I will let Officer Mack _interrogate_ you. "

Another slimy voice added, "I'll make sure she enjoys it as much as I do."

I did not like what I was hearing, I holstered my pistol. The Chinese 'shock sword' needed a test run.

The blade drew easily from its sheath, as the prick overseer walked out, "Enjoy yourself Mack, don't leave any marks please." He laughed, and walked towards me.

I loved being unseen. It allowed me so many opportunities. In my hand, the Asian blade glowed blue under my stealth field. This was gonna hurt the old bastard. A lot.

I leaped forward, jamming the blade threw the man's stomach, and kept my hand over his mouth. Tendrils of electricity arced over his body and he screamed. I eased him to the floor, deactivating the invisibility. "Tell me the Overseer's command code, or you die."

The old bastard looked at me, and paled even more, if that were possible. "She wasn't lying..." I jolted the blade in his innards to remind him of the situation he was in. "Tell me the code old man!" I demanded.

man listed a gibberish string, obvious bullshit to me, I activated the sword for a moment. "Alright!" he screamed, "000388E6, its the master code for all the overseers."

I looked at him with disdain, "Good." I yanked the sword out, and stomped on his wound. The man barely made a sound before he was either dead or unconscious. I really did not care at all.

I walked into the security office, inside Amata was yelling for help, I switched on the stealth field again and entered. Officer Mack, head of vault security was standing in front of Amata. The sick bastard was undressing, smiling, and about to do something I was gonna make him regret about thinking of. The sword made a nearly undetectable humming, as it clipped both his leg tendons. Officer mack dropped to the ground, as I turned visible. The man turned to me with a pistol in hand. I imagine he felt as surprised as he looked as I sliced the gun barrel off the now useless weapon. "Impossible!" He cried. I looked at Amata, my childhood sweetheart and best friend, tied to a chair and clothes torn. My hatred for the thing at my feet increased as he tried in vain to crawl away. I impaled one of his outstretched hands with the sword, then the other. The electrical current running threw my blade added to his discomfort, and burned the wounds shut. I didn't want him to get out that easy. I upped the voltage channeled thru the blade and dragged the man by his throat into the hall.

The mess I made out of him was a nightmare to behold, but he needed to know that you don't do that to women. He should live. If you call what I left behind alive.

When I returned to Amata I left Mack's pistol in her lap, with a new jumpsuit. I raided all the ammo the security office still had, nearly two dozen clips of 10mm ammo. With six clips of 10mm armor piercing. Another dozen stimpacks helped as well.

I had never taken another human life before today, and I needed to leave this metal tomb before my conscious kicked in. I kept walking past people being mauled by rad-roaches, I barely registered my dad's work buddy Jonas, slaughtered in a corner.

The door to the overseer's room took barely a second to pick, and the password was even worse. "Amata?" Seriously, who the fuck made that old bastard in charge? They needed to be shot on general principal. I paused, wanting badly to find and maim the unknown target, but instead walked into the 'secret tunnel' and hit the close switch. A small tunnel filled with roaches later and I was at the vault entrance. The door was surprisingly easy to open, just pull the rusty lever. The chunk of steel that was the door opened with a giant screech and blaring alarms. The vault door opened, and the doors behind me did as well. A baker's dozen of vault security had their pistols trained on me with the bastard overseer bandaged between them.

"Hold it Sypher! Your not leaving the vault!"

I lowered my pistol, placing it back in its holster. Without giving it away I palmed two frag grenades from my belt, ready to release them as needed. I calmly lowered my arms, palms facing behind me.

"Your not getting away Louis. You will be arrested and executed for the murder of the two security officers and Jonas." The old bastard proclaimed.

"Bullshit, You'll have to catch me first." I chose my targets wisely and launched both of the Grenades. The officers ducked and covered, while the half dead man ran back into the Vault.

Within ten seconds the pineapples exploded, wounding and maiming the whole crowd, possibly killing a few.

It brought a smile to my face, knowing the tyrant wouldn't have his little pawns available to bully the good people in the vault for a while. I took a moment to consider shooting them, and decided that the positives definably outweighed the negatives.

Six shots later, a pulled door lever, and the vault was open. The old metal screeched and squealed, giving me a headache from hell.

A gust of fresh, unrecycled air blew past. Even with the suit's air filters I could feel the difference in the air. It was beautiful.

A long dark tunnel was before me, the skeletal remains of people desperate to get into the vault lay in piles at the door. I felt sympathy and pity for the wasted lives of good people that just wanted to live.

"What a waste." I muttered, walking past the bones.

I kept walking forward into the gloom and dark of the cave, even as I swore I heard Amata calling me back.

I don't know how long the tunnel was, but at the end was an unexpected wall. Made out of crappy, falling apart lumber.

I honestly my eye started twitching out of annoyance. The Vault's cave was hidden by a door made of shitty wood? Why the hell were some raider's not using this place for a base or people using the cave as a home?

"The people at vault-tec were fuckin' grade A-geniuses." I bitched sarcastically.

I didn't bother opening the door, I gave the piece of shit a boot to the doorknob and the whole wall collapsed.

I got a perfect view of the wasteland.

The ruins of D.C. Were back-lit by a setting sun, the two hundred year old ruins standing strong against the tides of time, wasteland conflict, and the occasional idiot with explosives.

I looked over the awe inspiring scenery, and wonder at how great the war must have been.

"What's this guy? Some kinda ninja?" A rough voice interrupted.

I groaned, not even five minutes in the wasteland and I was willing to bet I was about to have my first encounter with raiders. Sure enough, five guys dressed in rags and meshed together armor were moving up the hill leading to the vault.

They moved around me, flanking to make sure I couldn't escape. "Is there any reason we shouldn't cut you up ninja boy?" the leader asked.

I flipped the stealth switch for the suit, "Yeah, my disappearing act."

I vanished in front of their eyes and they panicked. I drew the shock-sword, and made quick work of them. A quick slice across the throat. They each dropped with fear in their eyes, and for a moment, I felt like a total monster.

The corpses help nothing but knives, drugs, and five dozen caps between the lot of them. I remember dad lecturing me that caps were standard currency in the waste, and took a side-pouch from the body of a female raider. She wasn't going to use it, and I needed a quick access holder for my new found money.

I double checked the bodies, still finding nothing of use. I moved the corpses away from the vault cave, tossing them off the nearby mini-cliff into the broken pavement that use to be a road. The bodies made a sickening sound as they flopped at their grave. I pointedly tried not to notice.

I walked down the hill and into the ruined town at the base of the road, ignoring my victims in favor of trying to spot any sign of life. I knew the scrap town of megaton was supposed to be nearby, but it was late. I didn't want to try to hike in the darkness. Stealth armor or not if I ran across anything that matched Dad's descriptions of a yao-guai or deathclaw, then I was gonna run and hide like a bitch.

From the road I was on, I could see the rusting walls of megaton. What drew my attention however was the hovering ball of metal that was playing pre-war patriotic music.

My eyes narrowed, my dad warned me about The Enclave, the definition of the road to hell. The moment the ball started talking in the voice of 'John Henry Eden' I knew. Dad was gonna have a fit, but somehow the Enclave were in the capital wasteland. I drew the sniper rifle from my back and placed a perfect shot into the radio robot's speakers. The ball shaped waste of metal dropped to the ground and exploded like a grenade.

Just my luck that it exploded next to a seemingly intact car. I say seemingly intact, because moments later the car burst into flames and I ran just in time to be launched threw the air at Megaton's walls.

My body hurt like never before, the wind was knocked out of me, and I swear I was seeing triple of everything past my visor.

I could just barely make out a robot gate guard turn to me, "Welcome to Megaton." It stated.

I saw something walk towards me in a light blue jumpsuit, I could barely make out a woman's face before she spoke in a irritatingly sweet voice, "Oh gosh, I think you need help!" She exclaimed.

"No duh." I responded.

The blast must have took more out of me than I thought, Because the last I remember, I dropped to the ground in a shit load of pain.


	2. The Wasteland Survival guide

If you have ever woken up with a tequila hangover, you know how I felt waking up after that thrice damned car exploded. My head was pounding, my eyes hurt, my chest still felt like someone had used me for half a dozen fights against Rocky Balboa. Also judging from the lack of skintight cloth on my body I was guessing I'm naked.

"Oh goody! Your awake!" It was the sugar loaded voice again, dripping with cuteness. Somewhere in the back of my mind the little voice that all men have was wondering if it was a cute redhead. I silenced that voice by reminding him that if I don't take three stimpacks to the chest soon I might have a very big problem.

I groaned, sitting up from the ruined bed that I was laying on. My chest doubled in pain and I was very sorely tempted to eat a 10mm AP bullet to put me out of my misery. Luckily for whatever reason, I decided against it.

I forced my eyes open, and took in my surroundings. I was in somebody's bedroom, my stuff from what I could tell was piled in a corner, and a seriously cute redhead was in between my legs with her face inches from what I considered a important part of my anatomy. Part of me was insulted that despite my lack of decency she was only looking at my left leg.

"What are you doing?" I asked, still groggy and very confused.

The redhead just smiled at me, "You've been sleep for three days now. You hit the walls pretty hard after all."

"Jesus non-exhistant Christ..." I moaned, "Got any stimpacks? My chest feels like I've been shot."

The redhead handed me a stimpack, I popped the needle cap and plunged it directly into my heart. The pre-war medicine went to work immediately, the pain already dulling as my body got a nice, relaxing, tingling feeling. The minor pain from a needle to a vital organ didn't even register. I knew it was stupid to use a direct heart injection rather than use the medicine function of my Pip-Boy 3000 but damn it, my chest hurt!

"Could you hand me two more?" I asked nicely, trying to keep a good impression until I knew for sure where the hell I was. The chick didn't seem like a raider, but I'd rather not take my chances.

The woman handed me another two stimpacks from my bag and this time I used the Pip-Boy's injection function. I felt a dimmed rush across my body and my strength rush back to one hundred percent. I flexed and groaned in pleasure as my joints popped after three days of staying still.

I turned to my assumed savior, "Thank you Ms?"

"Oh! My name is Moira Brown!" She stated cheerfully, I briefly wondered if everything she did was so cute and cheerful. I also wondered how the hell anyone was so cheerful in a post-apocalyptic radioactive wasteland.

"Well thank you for taking care of me, My names Louis." I stood up and once again noticed that I still was not wearing any clothes at all. "Excuse me for a second..." I said and moved to put on my gear again.

After a few minutes of making sure everything was still in its proper place I was back in my gear, minus the stealth suit's helmet.

I turned back to my new friend, "So do I have to worry about having lost organs or anything while I was asleep?" I asked, only half-joking.

Moira smiled at me, "No, you had a broken leg and the Geiger counter said over eight hundred rads. I admit, I used you for my research but no harm done!"

I examined myself a second time, paying attention to the leg she was examining earlier.

"Your said over eight hundred rads?" I asked, checking my Pip-boy's Geiger counter. Sure enough the machine registered that I had been hit with a large dose of radiation, but it was treated fast.

"Uh-huh," Moira confirmed, still speaking in the too sweet voice, "I also examined your body while you were out cold. It's very nice."

I felt torn between acknowledging my growing headache and feeling complemented that an attractive woman was checking me out. I cursed hormones for the millionth time since I hit puberty.

"So... wheres a place I can get something to eat?" I asked, breaking the awkwardness.

"The Brass Lantern is open, its at the bottom of town."

"Bottom?" I asked.

"Your in Megaton Silly. The whole town is in a crater."

"Oh." I guess I arrived earlier than I thought.

How far did that car throw me?

I left Moira's place, a little uncomfortable around the woman. She seemed a little... Off.

I walked down the ramps and pathways around the town, slowly making my way to the bottom. Judging from the stiffness in my leg the limb hadn't healed completely, the Pip-boy's bio reader showed tissue damage and a few hairline cracks still in the bones. Gotta love bloodstream nanobots, little pre-war miracle cures.

Megaton was an impressive town in its own right. The people were friendly, I wasn't getting shot at, instead they all were pointing and talking amongst themselves. I tried not to hear but it was kinda hard not to.

"Did you hear about him?"

"-that's the guy from Moira's- "

"-recovered so quickly-"

"-heard she was fucking him-"

I really hoped that last one wasn't referring to me. I preferred to be conscious for all my intimate and enjoyable encounters. That and Moira was already getting up there in my 'creepy wasteland people' list.

The Brass Lantern looked like its namesake, a small pieced together shack that I suspected would drop to the dirt from a single shotgun round.

In front of the Lantern was a woman with dirty blond hair, and a dirty prewar outfit. Beside her was a guy I guessed was in his early twenties, who looked pissed. "Hey, maybe I should put that on the sign out front. The Brass Lantern: Cleaner, safer, and less likely to have piss in the drinks!" He yelled.

The woman shook her head in the negative, "Andy you need to stop all this feuding with Moriarty. It will only end up getting you into trouble."

The name Moriarty struck a bell. Colin Moriarty was a man my Dad had paid off constantly for info on prewar sites and merchant groups. It seems like the old Irish piss-bag was still alive.

"Excuse me," I interrupted, "But you wouldn't happen to be talking about an old Irish asshole with a first name of Colin, would ya?" I asked.

The guy stepped forward, flexing a little so I would be intimidated by the lack of muscle hidden by his leather vest and long sleeves. "So what if we are? What of it?" The guy, Andy, questioned with distrust.

"Easy, I want to ask him a few questions and depending on how much he pisses me off I might just shove him off one of these ramps."

Andy grinned, "Your a man after my own heart. You'll find that bastard up top in his bar, 'Moriarty's Saloon' egotistical fuck." He cursed.

"Good, now on to business. I'm in desperate need of grub and have some caps to spare. Please tell me you got something good, and home cooked?"

"Jenny will take care of you," Andy replied, smiling, "Jenny! Whip him up some of the mirelurk cakes and noodles."

I knew from dad's lessons that Mirelurks were like giant pissed off lobster, and that the meat was supposed to be very delicious. "If you tell me you have an Ice cold nuka cola, I won't eat anywhere else." I joked.

Jenny smiled at me, opening the door to the postwar restaurant, "Your going to make us a lot of money then!" She proclaimed.

A little under a half hour later, I was slurping down some non-irradiated noodles with spices and mirelurk cakes soaking in the broth. The Nuka-cola provided just made the meal better. After years of packaged vacuum and synthetic foods, a real home cooked meal was unbelievably addictive.

I finished the meal with a burp and a smile. I didn't care if I had to hike across the entire American Wasteland, I would always come back for a meal like that.

"My complements to the lovely lady chef."

Jenny smiled and blushed, "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

"How often are you open-"

I was cut off as a man stumbled in, he looked stoned, and had signs of long term drug use. Judging from the lack of change in Jenny's eyes, this was a common occurrence. The fact that she didn't stop him meant that he was someone familiar to her. Possibly family.

The man slurred his words badly, something along the lines of sleeping in the back.

As soon as the man wandered out back, I turned to Jenny, "Who is he and how long has this been going on?" I asked.

Jenny sighed, sitting at a stool behind the bar. "Hes my older brother Leo Stahl. He's been addicted to god knows what for who knows how long now."

I cracked my knuckles, and stretched my neck out to pop out a remaining knot. "What would you do if someone cured him of his addictions?" I asked plainly.

Jenny's eyes widened, "Buddy if you can do that, Ill make sure you get a free meal here every day for as long as I can."

I grinned, "Keep cooking for me like you've been doing and I'll bring flowers to the wasteland."

"Now tell me everything you know."

Ten minutes later I was once again wandering around Megaton, this time looking for either a Mr. Burke to shoot him or the Water purification plant to steal Leo's drugs and plant a pseudo cure in his stash instead. Fortunately for the mysterious Mr. Burke I found the treatment plant first, and walked inside. The machines were loud, and it was obvious that the whole place need a critical overhaul. I knew for a damn fact if Amata or my Dad were here I would be hearing them commenting on my saving people thing. As I've told them a million, billion times, I don't have a 'saving people thing' I believe in Karma and that every good deed will reward me in the future.

Every time I explained this, they both just laughed.

Ignoring the problems of the water plant for the moment, I sniffed out Leo's stash. The shitty old world lock had no chance of resisting my skills at lock picking. All I needed was a screwdriver and the tip of my throwing knife, and behold the lock was won. Inside were at least two hundred and fifty bottle caps, and a dozen shots of various drugs. Buffout, Med-x, Mentats, Psycho, the six stimpacks I stole for myself with the caps of course, and over thirty shots of jet.

How the hell the man managed to get a stockpile like this was beyond me. I cleaned out the whole container of stuff before starting my own chemistry project. A few shots of Buffout, med-X, psycho, and mixed well in a whiskey bottle with some other crude synthetics I grabbed from the local Doctor. The whiskey mixed in was at least one hundred and ninety proof. By anyone's standards, a single shot of the stuff would knock a man flat on his ass.

For a drug user about to get a unexpected system flush it would be a super sledgehammer to the testicles.

I placed the bottle in the locker after pouring all the jet into a bin out the window, the placing the empty cartridges back in the locker. When Leo showed up tonight, unable to get his fix he'l settle for the untouched alcohol take a swig and drop, and wake up with the wasteland's greatest hangover in the morning with no drugs in his system at all.

I smiled. Half my good deeds were for good karma, the other half were for personal enjoyment. Personally I enjoy the suffering of idiots who willingly get addicted to drugs of any sort.

I was whistling a merry tune and working on the water plant moments later. The old pipes were re-routed, the pressure buildup on the pumps reduced. I was having a ball with it, until I heard a loud clanking sound from behind me that couldn't have been from the machines.

I lept up from my crouched position drawing my pistol from its side holster, cocking the gun and pointing it at the old guy behind me. The old man looked to shit himself.

"Who are you?" the old guy asked.

"I'm Louis," I said holstering my gun, "sorry about that I'm really jumpy when surprised."

"I could tell." The old man stated smirking, "My name's Walter, I run the Water processing plant. Now then, just what in the hell are you doing to my machines?"

"I've just been fixing them up where I could, so that whole thing should run a little smoother."

Walter checked my work as I expected, and came back to face me with a shit eating grin. "Boy I don't know how you did it or who taught you but goddamn, the plants almost to one hundred and sixty percent efficiency!"

"Wow, I wasn't aiming to fix it up that much!"

"Boy there's only one thing left to be done and I'll have the plant producing three times the necessary amount. There's three pipes in town that are leaking water, If you can find them and fix them I'll pay you a thousand caps for the work you've done."

I couldn't pass up a thousand caps, that was just too tempting of an offer. I shook Walter's hand and started my hunt. The first two pipes were a piece of cake, the first by the town gates, the second by the common house. The third was karma's way of paying me back for killing the vault security guys. The pipe wasn't on the ground, it wasn't close to any of the ramps or walkways in convenient reach.

No. It was hanging on the underside of Moriarty's Saloon.

I cursed, I grumbled, and I bitched for fifteen minutes, trying to think of a way to get up the pipe that wouldn't involve me being retarded and risking death.

After my fifteen minutes of bitching, I found my balls and walked up to the railings in front of the Saloon, and hoped my stunt wouldn't get me killed. There was little to no chance of that, but damn it I could hope.

I flipped over the railing, holding on with my hands on the walkway supports and my legs pinching a steel beam between my thighs. I could see the pipe, spewing water all over the place. I'm still surprised that the damn thing didn't just rust and drop to the ground.

Sarcasm and wit aside, for the moment, I inched my way to the leak. I prayed to every deity that hasn't ignored the human race for over two hundred years. I got to the pipe and with minimum effort, closed the leak with the proper application of tools and shit loads of wonderglue.

Then Karma bit me in the ass and I fell to the ground. The drop hurt like a bitch and the roll made me dizzier than I ever remember being. Those parts weren't so bad. It was when I rolled into a mud pool mixed with irradiated water that I regretted not wearing the orange eyesore helmet. The whacking my head against an undetonated atomic bomb reinforced the point.

Andy stall was actually nice enough to help me up while some crackpot in white rags preached loudly about how I had been blessed by Adam.

I was covered in mud, soaked in irradiated water, and pissed, so when the crackpot started to hug me I felt I was within my rights to kick him in the balls. Strangely he looked happy, even with his face in the mud and clutching his hopefully shattered man parts.

I walked over to the Brass Lantern with Andy laughing at my side as we entered.

Jenny gave me a quick look over, "I don't mind my guys being Dirty but Honey, your pushing it."

I growled while Andy rolled on the floor laughing.

"Ha de fuckin Ha." I said, very displeased, "Anyways, Jenny I got that job done for you. If all goes well the next time he tries to take a trip he'll come clean."

Jenny smiled, "then you better make sure you come by for supper tonight, alright?"

Andy gave me a pointed look, "Your not trying to be sweet to my sister are you?" He accused.

"Whoa, no!" I denied, "I just got out of a bad relationship. I'm not rushing for another one."

Amata drifted across my mind only to be violently shoved away.

"I only did your sister a favor, now I need to see a man about some caps."

Andy grinned, "You know if your looking for some spending money you should talk to Moira. Shes making a 'survival guide' and is paying big money to anyone who helps her with it."

I thought about it on my way to pick up my caps from a incredibly excited Walter. According to him, the Plant was now making four times the amount of water needed for Megaton. At this point the town could actually afford to trade the stuff. Walter paid me my caps, and hugged me. The hugging was starting to annoy me. A lot.

With around thirteen hundred caps in my bags I was a happier man. I mean I never had a lot of money in the Vault, but suddenly having a lot of money for little work made me giddy.

Then when I got back to Moira's shop the unusually named 'craterside supply' my bad mood started building again. I made the mistake of asking her about the book she was writing, and offered to help if the pay was good.

Her explanation of her research methods, and what she want me to research was insane. If it wasn't for the temptation of wealth no sane person would ever think of some of her ideas.

"Which do you want to do? Check out minefield or check the super duper mart?" she asked.

I resolved that I was going to hurt Andy Stahl, badly.


	3. Favors for Moira

I'm not an idiot. I like to think that between the Vault-tec education, my own private study, and My scientist dad trying his hardest to cram every bit of knowledge possible into my head that I have actually learning a thing or two.

When I agreed to help Moira research her book, it didn't take long for me to realize that I was wrong, I am in fact an idiot of some degree.

I figured that raiding a really close by prewar supermarket would not get my ass killed six ways before I could blink. Just a stroll across some hills, or a walk around using a broken up highway. I wasn't as easy as it sounds.

The highway for whatever reason was a site for a three way battle between some red armored guys with big guns, two dozen raiders, and at least four dozen giant ants.

I watched the fight, to be honest it was somewhat entertaining. The ants were spewing out of a hole in the ground near some scorch marks. Judging from the dead raider with a flamer nearby, the Raider was actually keeping them back until the red armored guys shot at him for whatever reason.

The Red armored guys looked like brotherhood of steel, except red armor, and less lasers getting shot. I wondered who the hell they were. Dad never mentioned them, and they weren't in his notes either.

The raiders were the really entertaining part. The Red steel guys were mowing down the ants with mini-guns and assault rifles, the raiders were using pistols and an assortment of melee weapons. They also had the brilliant idea of rushing the ants, and getting mowed down as well. Eventually the guys with pistols noticed this, but instead of thinking that they're friends were idiots, they started shooting the red guys.

Two on one and the reds were still holding them both off. The fight was still going on however, so I decided to hike over the mountains. Which was the reason I say I'm an idiot.

I'm wearing Chinese stealth armor, upgraded by the (in my very biased opinion) two greatest scientists the wastelands have ever had to offer. It is bulletproof, flame resistant, has a stealth field and air filters.

The reason I say I'm and idiot was because I forgot the stealth field, and walked right by a very big, very angry Yao-Guai.

As I'm sure I mentioned before, I've learned from my family about a variety of wasteland critters. The two that terrify me and I've said I would run like a bitch from are the Deathclaws, and the Yao-Guai.

The moment I stepped into the ghoul bear's line of sight, I knew I was fucked. An lo-and behold, I ran like a bitch, forgetting the steal field. Again.

The bear took chase, and it was gaining fast. It roared, and I nearly shit myself in terror. I took off running in a different direction, this time aiming for the mini-battlefield I gust walked away from.

Sure enough, the three groups were still fighting, just with less raiders and less ants around.

I leapt of the cliff and rolled, and somehow hit the ground, running past the guys in red power armor.

I heard one of them shout, "-The Armor! Sypher!"

and now the bullets were flying at me!

I heard the pissed off roar of my personal Yao-guai as it barreled into the troopers, and both sides were not happy about it. This time, I remembered the stealth field and snuck away, following the road to get to the super duper mart, before something else bad could happen.

A quick hike to the riverside, however, proved that if karma does exist, she hates me with a passion for something.

The store was a raider base. And a reinforced one too if the decor was any hint.

The latest victims were stung up with ropes or chains, a few barrels were filled with fire. Graffiti and gang markings were all over the place. I could see a few of the bastards in front of the store, holding assault rifles, Chinese officer swords, and other actually decent weapons. What I was concerned about was the fact that the three I could see were all wearing well built metal armor rather than the crude rags and rubber tires the other raiders had.

It wasn't power armor, more like plates welded together. I cursed, I was going to be wasting a serious number of armor piercing rounds. I was sure.

Beside the store there was a little broken down bridge, barely holding together. The railings on the bridge would make excellent cover for a stealth covered sniper. I took point on the bridge keeping the stealth field active.

I reviewed my training:

Clip loaded. Check.

Scope adjusted, check.

Silencer attached, check.

Laser sight, not needed, but check.

I took aim on the first raider. A girl, she looked like she couldn't pass for twenty if she tried. Dirt caked her blond hair, tied into twin ponytails.

I watched as she walked away from the other two guards, the moment she turned the corner out of their sight, I pulled the trigger.

My rifle coughed, and a brief second later, the girl dropped. A hole had opened just under her right eye. The AP round did its job, no chance for survival.

I took aim at the other two, both men drinking beers and laughing. The next shot popped the skull open. The next was a near miss and caught the raider in the throat. A final shot eased his pain.

I grimaced. No matter how many times I said they deserved it, I never quite convince myself.

I ran up and looted the bodies, barely thirty caps between them. One of them had a mint assault rifle, adding to my earlier suspicions. Raiders don't come with good equipment unless organized or paid off.

I grabbed the rifle and the three clips of 5.56mm. Hopefully It would serve me better than it did him. I took a belt from one of the bodies and made a crude harness for the rifle, but kept it out as my weapon of choice. My instincts were telling me this was going to get loud and possibly ugly, I was going to need something rapid fire if they were right.

I moved my victim's remains to a dumpster and tossed them in. No point in being sneaky if I'm leaving a clue that someone was here.

The field stayed on as I entered the ruined market. I prayed nobody was watching the door.

My luck held and there was a lack of a door guard. Torch lights and flaming barrels kept the place lit. The old shelves had been converted to walkways and walls, with a few barricades in between. Six raiders paced the crude walkways, while another dozen wandered about getting high off something or eating.

A scream in the back followed by laughter made my blood run cold. They had hostages to boot. If Moira gypped me on the caps for this and I didn't get laid from the heroism I was gonna be pissed.

My conscience took a moment to bitch at me, and inform me that it was the right thing to do regardless of rewards.

I held in a groan, my conscience was trying to kill me.

To my right was an area with a full counter and a wall covering parts of it. A small shelter at best. I ducked behind it, almost stepping on one of the five sleeping raiders inside. I pulled one of the knives from my boots, gently lowering my new rifle to the counter top.

I walked up to the closest, and crouched down. I had to be careful not to make a sound. I grabbed the man by his mouth and shoved the blade into the throat and pierced the spine. His eyes shot awake, and despite the visor, and the stealth field I swear to any of the divine he looked me right in the eyes. I didn't like how it felt.

I preformed the stealth kill four more times, each time the raider's eyes opened. Lucky for me and my growing sense of guilt, none of the others looked me in the eyes.

I moved the bodies to a corner, and started to look for Moira's suggested food storage. The food was all stashed in the boxes and shelves along the back wall. I grabbed a metal footlocker from under the counter and filled it up with what I could.

According to Moira there was also supposed to be a prewar pharmacy still intact in the back.

I groaned and grabbed the sniper rifle off my back, I had two shots in my current clip and extra ammo in my duffel bag. I still had to make each shot count. A single miss and I would probably be swamped by the assholes in seconds.

The six raiders on the walkway went first, each shot a clean hit into the brain. If they weren't dead they would be in a few minutes. Thanks to the poor lighting and the fires, there was a lot of smoke. It made it so the drug addicts would take longer to notice the fallen friends.

I was down nearly two clips of .308 AP now. It was time to put on a show. I stashed my sniper rifle, and duffel bag in the back with the food footlocker. It was time for the Chinese shock sword to come out and play.

I activated the blade's built in generator, and the blade hummed as a current ran across it. I pulled the silenced 10mm and rushed towards to closest raider. He barely noticed the sound of feet running towards him as I lopped off his head. He dropped with a loud crash, and a spray of blood. A few raiders nearby looked stunned and started yelling, I ran at them and another head joined the first followed by torso of the third.

By now yelling and other noises had alerted the rest of the gang that something was up. I spotted two grenades sitting on the belt of one of the raiders I just butchered. I pulled both pins and threw them at random. The pineapples sailed into the air and landed with a bang, causing wood and limbs to scatter. I heard a number of raiders try to keep order and shouting commands.

I rushed towards the sound, sword and pistol at the ready.

The first raider received a slice across her unguarded stomach, The next was shot three times in the chest, The third was cut from pelvis to shoulder. One of the raiders must have had a semblance of intelligence, they fired a volley of shots in between the three fallen in hopes of hitting me.

I pulled an incendiary grenade from my belt and lobbed it in retaliation.

The blast drew the attention of the survivors and lit the shelves on fire. Superheated chemicals exploding had a tendency to do that.

I sheathed my pistol and sword and grabbed the assault rifle and opened fire. The rifle drew the attention of the now furious crowd and they rushed into the spray of bullets. Three raiders dropped before the others tried to take cover, but I still winged at least another five or so before they could.

I reloaded the assault rifle, and sprayed them again, bleeding the clip dry.

I reloaded again, climbing up on top of the shelves, careful to avoid the flames that were spreading. Several Raiders rushed over to my position thinking I was out of hot lead. I drew the trusty pistol sword and pistol combo, going to town and slicing apart any that were to close to shoot.

One of the raider's was a bleeder, the life force spraying from him covered me, showing a rough outline of where I was. The raider's saw this and panicked, their drugged minds to slow to think rationally. I took advantage of it and screamed bloody rage at them, hacking apart another with the shock sword. The survivors and wounded alike ran screaming that a ghost was slaughtering them.

I wisely ducked behind a collapsed shelf and swiped a bottle of water from nearby, irradiated or not it helped wash off some of the blood, allowing me to hide again.

I sheathed the blade, taking note that the fires from my grenade were spreading fast. I rushed to the pharmacy doors, kicking the door in rather than waste time with the lock. I spotted a first aid box attached to the walls, I grabbed it and ripped it off filling it with anything in the room that looked close to medical.

The fires were getting bigger now, and I needed a way out. Nearby locked in a maintenance station was a protectron. I checked its command console, praying to the divine that it had a fire control routine. Moment's later it activated and scanned the store. Registering the fire it walked over to a nearby valve and opened it. I heard multiple loud blasting sounds, like a dozen grenades exploded underwater. I heard loud hissing, and suddenly, water was flowing into the room from the outside. Very irradiated water.

I cursed and swore, marching my way back across the store to gather my stash and get the fuck out. I was about three steps from the front door when I heard another scream, a woman's cry for help. My belief in Karma would be the death of me.

I placed my stuff beside the door, and secured the last clip in the assault rifle. I rushed to the back of the store, hopping over a counter rather than deal with lock picking or breaking down more doors.

The water was flooding in fast and judging from the color and smell it was coming straight from the irradiated river outside. I heard a raider's cruel laughter and the whimpers of a person who's obviously in pain.

I tackled the door the noises came from, drawing my weapon on the tallest thing in the room.

And goddammit was he tall.

A fucking super mutant, clad in raider gear glared at me, a dainty woman's arm in his hand.

An arm unconnected to a person.

The super looked at me and stomped on something on the ground, the women's head. I realized another problem, I turned that fucking stealth field off again. The Super took advantage of that fact and grabbed me by the head before throwing my whole body into and threw the door I had neglected to open earlier.

My back and spine now hated me for it as I ricocheted off one of the half-burnt shelves. I pointed the rifle in my hands at the door and let the bullets fly, as per my thrice cursed karma the bullets hit head on and bounced off the meat wall's metal armor.

The meta-human pulled an assault rifle of its own out, a goddamned Chinese assault rifle. Lucky me.

The monster took aim and fired as I dived aside. The water pooling from the roof and on the floor was preventing the stealth field from doing any good, and most of the shelves and crude walkways were burnt or broken from fighting the raiders.

I dived and hid behind another set of collapsed shelves. The monster growled, "Come out! Stop hiding!"

"Fat chance of that."I grumbled. My back and chest were protesting against me breathing, so I'm guessing I had at least one broken rib. I had to get back to my stuff to grab a stimpack.

I crawled as far as I could from the very pissy green guy. The mutant was starting to get really pissed, I could tell from the shelves and dead bodies it was throwing around trying to find me as I gained distance.

I got back to my stash and strapped on my gear. The sniper rifle was now back in my hands, and ready to take out big green and pissy.

A loud breaking of glass and growling interrupted my shot however.

Yogi the Yao-guai had entered the building. I had five seconds to run for it before the ghoulish hell bear got to me and gutted me.

Luck however seemed to finally like me. Big green also spotted the damn bear and rushed it, screaming, "Found You!"

Yogi didn't take kindly to being shot at and charged the stupid lug. I grabbed the first aid kit and food locker and booked it out the front door, turning on the stealth field as soon as I hit sunlight.

The trip back to Megaton was uneventful, apart from seeing the torn apart remains of the red armor guys. Yogi must have had a field day, because the suits of power armor were torn to shreds.

I got to the Craterside supply just as the sun was starting to set, very exhausted even with half a dozen stimpacks and two shots of Buffout in my system.

I delivered the supplies to Moira as promised, receiving free medical treatment and another hundred caps for my troubles. I would have tried to negotiate but at the moment I just didn't care. Half brain dead I limped my way to the nearest bed and collapsed.

It was a two hundred year old bed, but by god, it felt so comfortable.

The next morning I woke up to the sounds of gunfire. I rushed outside to see a group of Megaton townies shooting out gaps in the walls or from platforms by the main gates. My rifle was still strapped on my back, and in less than a second it was cocked in my hand.

I looked up at the town's sniper in time to see his post get hit by an explosion and him be blasted off his perch. I ran forward and dived catching the man with a barrel roll.

A black man in a sheriff outfit ran forward, "Stockholm! Dammit!" He turned to me, "Kid please tell me your good with that rifle?"

I nod, "Need a hand?"

"I need you to take Stockholm's spot in the roost while I get him to the doctor."

I nod again, and run for the wall as another barrage of racket fire hits the wall. The raiders have a hell of a lot more firepower than I thought if they have a working rocket launcher.

I get up to Stockholm's post, idly taking note of the furniture and other items laying around. I settle into a textbook sniper's poise drawing a bead on my first kill of the day.

By my count there are only twenty raiders, hiding behind rocks and taking shots with the usual crappy guns.

What really catches my attention is the guys wearing broken power armor. The survivors from the super duper mart must have found the dead reds. I spot three raiders with mini guns, one with the launcher, and the final one carrying a green glowing plasma rifle. The five in in shredded armor were gesturing at the others and giving orders. I cracked my neck and fired a shot at the guy with the Launcher, aiming for the unarmored hand on the Launcher's trigger. My bullet tore into his arm like a hot knife in synthetic butter. The Armored raider screamed and dropped the heavy launcher. I spot a bag filled with his rocket ammo and fire another bullet. The poor sap exploded with a very big blast. The other four commanders noticed that a sniper had to be shooting and the mini-gun armed unleashed three streams of lead at the walls, hoping to wound me. One of the mini-gun armed assholes was wearing a breastplate that was missing half the front. I aimed for the fissure in the armor and fired, he dropped, the bullet probably ricochet inside the armor. Not a good way to go.

The plasma guy must have been the smart one, he pulled a plasma grenade from a pouch and prepped it, I made a shot at one of the unarmored sections of the heavy armed bastards and the leader let loose the grenade, straight at me.

The blast caught me off guard, knocking me off the platform and outside the walls. My still recovering leg felt like it was on fire, and my head was ringing. If it wasn't for the stealth field I was sure one of the bastards would have spotted me and taken me out by now.

As it was, three raiders were searching over by the collapsed remains of Stockholm's perch. I strapped my rifle to my back, drawing both of my throwing knives. I took a moment to direct inject myself with two stimpacks and a double dose of med-X, my leg couldn't afford to be a liability now. I held my knives in a reverse grip, and charged the searching raiders. I ran past two stabbing both in the chest as I passed them, and spin kicked the third to the ground, following up with a stab to the temple. I felt a moment's resistance as I tugged the knife from his skull but I had to hurry. Plasma boy was chucking more of the grenades at the walls, obviously enjoying how much damage they did.

I pulled two of my remaining four pineapples from by belt and let them fly, scattering the cannon fodder. The gunner's noticed and started to fire in what they thought was my direction. I ran into the group of cannon fodder instead, throwing both of my knives at the neck of one of the heavy's while I drew the shock sword, I went for crippling blows as I ran, aiming to get at the armored bastards as fast as I could. Plasma boy was now taking random shots in my direction, and I stopped swinging.

Instead I pulled the 10mm and ran to the grenade cleared path, taking aim at the shattered visor of one of the mini-gun wielders. I didn't have proper aim, and least fifteen feet left to cover, I squeezed the trigger as much as I could hoping for a lucky shot.

Eight shots in and the bastard screamed his heavy gun firing as he dropped, I felt three bullets enter my chest but the med-x helped me ignore it. The other gunner dropped as his partner's gun tore into his already damaged armor.

Plasma boy screamed obscenities as my stealth field failed and I impaled him in the chest with my electric blade. The bastard backhanded me and I dropped to the ground, my injuries catching up. He pointed his plasma rifle at me and cocked the gun.

It was at that moment that the black sheriff from before ran up and opened fire with the rifle in his hands. From the walls a number of shots were fired, each targeting the red armored bastard in front of me.

The shots weren't piercing his armor, but I could guess that it was giving him a hell of a headache while pushing him back.

The bastard turned to run and I saw my opening, a chunk of armor had been taken out of his lower back.

"Hold your Fire!" I yelled. Somehow the command was heeded, I ran forward tackling the bastard to the ground and flipping off him to my feet. I reloaded my pistol as the guy struggled to get to his feet in the heavy armor. I shot him three times in the sweet spot and he died screaming.

After that the raider's that weren't dead lost nerve and ran for it, a few getting picked off as they tried to escape.

I hobbled over to a rock and planted my ass there, pulling out another three stimpacks and a syringe of med-x. I grabbed both my throwing knives from the dirt and sheathed one, keeping the other ready. I removed the upper half of the stealth suit and plunged the needles into my stomach. With a lot of pain despite the medicine I dug the point of my knife into my gut and pried the 5mm shots from under the surface of my skin. The suit was majority bulletproof in places but the torso was still only Kevlar reinforced synthetic rubber. With the bullets removed the stimpacks did their job and the wounds were regenerating in front of my stoned eyes.

The Sheriff from before hiked up to where I was sitting, staring up at the sky. "I can't believe you pulled that stunt off."

I grinned, the med-x making me a little loopy. "Not a problem officer, just doing my duty."

The Sheriff must have seen how out of my mind I was, "Lets get you to the doctor, you look like you need one."

I stood up flexing a bit. "Don't be ridiculous! I'm fine!" I proclaimed, then dropped on my ass. The medicine allowed me to ignore the pain, but not the overwhelming weakness in my legs.

"Okay, maybe a doc would be a good thing right now."

The Sheriff just stared at me and laughed.


	4. The wanderer and the Raider

My talk with the sheriff was an enlightening one. His name was Lucas Simms, the mayor and Sheriff of Megaton. As he dragged my half-dead carcass from the battlefield to the town doctor, we chatted about loads of varying stuff; favorite guns, women, law in the wastelands. It wasn't until we touched the subject of family that the conversation got interesting

"-so I've been hunting for my dad ever since." I said.

"Really? Who's your dad? Maybe one of use has seen him." Replied Simms.

"My Father was James Sypher. A scientist type, hes got dark brown hair with bits of gray, eyes like mine and the same nose too."

The sheriff looked at me with astonishment. "Your Dr. Sypher's kid?" He asked, incredulously.

I returned the funny look, "Yeah you know him?" I asked back.

"Son, your father helped start megaton!" Simms exclaimed, "Your old man is the reason the lot of us have this place for a home."

I thought about it, it sounded like something dad would do. It would explain the fact that the place had a working water purifier. From that point on, for the next five hours at any point, Simms and I shared stories of my Dad and what he had done as long as we had known him. It was fun and relaxing and helped to distract me as the Doctor snapped my leg three times to reset it, and sewed up my chest from where I cut the bullets out. After the extensive work over from the Doc, who refused to be addressed as anything but 'Doc church' I limped over to the Lantern. Mostly because I was sure if I tried to walk back to Moira's house I'd drop over the railings in exhaustion.

The reception at the lantern was as friendly as always, Andy and Jenny cracking jokes while the food was whipped up. Simms joined me for a bit, discussing our favorite methods of aiming, before heading out mentioning something about gathering the 'spoils of war.' I didn't care much, I had my fair share of tools and junk already. I just didn't want anymore raiders getting their hands on the suits of power armor, even broken that shit gave an unfair advantage.

Jenny came up to me with her usual smarmy smile, this time a burger of sorts was on the plate, dripping with juice and a little bit of grease. The meat was tender, fresh, juicy, and delicious. The bread was stiff, and incredibly dry. It still made for a better than expected meal. I was halfway done with my burger, and two bottles of nuka-cola into my meal when my day got a little more interesting. I heard the door open and close behind me, but I didn't pay it any mind. It was that good of a meal.

Jenny noticed, and she whistled for her brother. "What do you want Jericho? We don't want your kind here. Get gone before my brothers make you." She stated coldly.

I didn't bother turning around, Andy had already entered the room with a hunting rifle in his hands. Both of them looked ready to kill.

The guy had a laid back but rough tone to his voice, "I don't want any trouble Jenny-"

"That's Ms. Stahl to you, scumbag." Andy cut in, raising the rifle slightly.

"Sorry, _Ms. Stahl._ " The guy, Jericho, emphasized her name, "Cant we just talk about what happened?"

Jenny's eyes got cold, and Andy was fingering the trigger. "Just because you were _drunk,_" Jenny spat, "Doesn't mean you can take liberties with me when you want!"

"Jenny-"

"Get out!" Andy yelled.

I sighed and put down my unfinished burger, and took a swig from my third bottle of nuka-cola. All I wanted was a nonviolent mealtime after kicking the ass of a bunch of raiders.

I glanced at Andy and nodded at him to get his attention, he looked at me and I told him straight up, "Lower the rifle and I'll take care of it."

I got up stretching, Simms had taken all of my loose equipment from me and dropped it off at my room at Moira's place. If this got dirty, all I'd have was my fists and my 10mm. I turned and faced Jericho. The guy was about six feet, give or take a few inches. He was old, I could tell that much from the baldness with beard look, and judging from the muscle I could see on his arms and under the leather armor I was in for a fight if he got pissed.

Wisely I tried fro diplomacy first, "Hey buddy, why don't we talk outside for a second, before Andy gets trigger happy."

Jericho had an attitude problem however, "Piss off vault shit. I don't need some pampered vault asshole interfering. I just want to talk to Jenny, clear up some shit."

I stood in between Jericho, Jenny, and Andy. "Listen Jericho, she doesn't want to talk to you. Calm down, we don't want a fight."

Jericho shoved me right around the recently stitched chest wound. It hurt a fuck-ton. I nearly collapsed, and leaned heavily on the stool I was just sitting on.

"Jenny, I didn't mean for it to happen like this. Come on! Gimme another chance! We can talk about this." He pleaded.

I saw Andy raise the gun again, this time I decided to push his buttons hard. I drew my trusty 10mm, and pointed it at his chest. "Get lost Asshole!" I yelled.

Apparently Jericho's temper snapped, he backhanded my pistol out of my hands, and slugged me in the face. Normally the stealth suit's visor would have protected me. Instead, it was probably sitting somewhere at Moira's instead of protecting my now cut face.

The adrenaline started pumping in my veins, and my fight or flight response kicked in. I chose fight, I jumped up and slammed both of my feet into Jericho's chest. The old guy hit the Lantern's door, went threw it and rolled in the dirt outside. I hit the floor, and snatched my pistol up. I made a warning shot as Jericho rolled to his feet. The shot hit the dirt but got the man's attention.

"That was your warning shot," I said holstering my gun, "Now can we please talk about this?"

I offered a hand to the guy, trying to be peaceful. He grabbed my hand and we both smiled as he shook it. Then the peace shattered as he yanked my arm, and slammed his fist into my face again and again, and again.

It hurt like a bitch to keep my eyes open, but I did, and I saw an opening and kicked Jericho's legs out from under him. The moment he dropped to the ground I aimed my elbow and dropped to the dirt, ramming it into his chest, then his neck, then his face. The poor sonofabitch threw another punch only for me to grab it and return with another elbow to the face.

He was coughing, wheezing, and had blood all across his face. We both stood facing each other, ready to start swinging. The bastard tossed the first punch. It hurt like I got shot again, and I wanted to shoot him badly but we kept trading blows. Eventually all good things come to an end, Jericho threw one more punch at me and I ducked under it, grabbing the arm. I dropped to my knees, grabbing him by the front of his armor, and I threw that old sonofabitch as hard as I could at the bomb and mud puddle nearby.

The Asshole hit the metal with a loud gong that drew the attention of anybody who wasn't already watching the fight.

Surprisingly we both started laughing. "Damn, you got some bite to you kid!" Jericho called from the dirt, "I'm hitting the saloon tonight and buying you a round of drinks."

"As long as we don't start round two during, its a deal." I yelled back.

I stumbled over to the old fighter, and helped him to his feet. We both hobbled over to Doc Church who just glared at me, "What the fuck was the point of patching your ass up if you just get into a fight _Minutes_ after leaving my clinic?"

"Oy! It's all in good fun!" I replied, "besides, I'm paying you this time."

Five minutes later, some basic first aid, and a jolly "Will you two get the fuck out!" from Doc Church I was right as rain again, and stumbled back into the Lantern to finish my meal. Andy tossed in another two bottles of free nuka-cola for 'entertainment'. Between the doc and the food I was down seventy five caps. I still had over a thousand so I wasn't bothered.

Apparently my show with Jericho had people talking about me again, I was halfway up the ramps to Craterside supply when I mindlessly walked into a random woman. "Sorry miss!" I exclaimed, startled.

She looked at me with big green eyes, she didn't look past her teens. "Wow, your the guy everyone's talking about!" She said excitedly, "Thank you for helping us!"

"Its no problem. I'm just glad to be able to lend a hand." I said honestly.

"Here I want you to have this." She pulled out a small pouch that had something metallic jingling inside, "It's the least any of us could do to thank you."

I shook my head no, "Keep it. I can scavenge what I need. If you've got anything of value, use it for yourself."

She just stared at me, and it felt really creepy.

I walked past her with a casual 'bye.' and finished limping up the ramps to Moira's. As soon as I walked in the door I wish I hadn't. I now know what happened to the suits of broken power armor, they were Moira's new toys. Scattered across the entire workshop were parts of the armors, clustered together by parts from what I could tell. Hanging from three of the walls were various crude blueprints and notes about the suits. Moira herself was running back and forth mumbling to herself, and making rapid notes on a clipboard she had in her hands.

The really bothering part was the look on her face, it was a cross between 'religious fanatic' and 'out of control drug addict'. It was a very, very scary look on the redhead. I swiftly rushed to my room, desperately wanting to not be dragged into her research. Part of me was scared that she was going to test out the armor, with me being the one wearing it.

In my room was my gear and three new bags of stuff. In the first was a minigun with all the 5mm ammo needed to run on a rampage with it so about five belts, or one thousand two hundred bullets. The next bag contained a plasma rifle, switched off. A dozen micro-fusion cells sat in the bag, each good enough for about ten to twelve shots per power cell. The third bag made my day, grenades. Lots and lots of grenades. Also in the bag was a Note from Sheriff Simms, the stuff in the bags was my cut because they were my definite kills. I double counted the number of grenades; twelve incendiary, thirty five plasma, and forty nine fragmentation grenades. I was going to hug Simms to death the next time I saw the man.

I smarted up, at the rate I was gathering materials, I was going to be overloaded unless I left stuff behind or sold it.

My grenade belt held only twelve grenades, the rest I could leave in my new stock pile. The plasma rifle was near mint, no real wear or tear on it. I wasn't to fond of carrying a miniature nuclear power plant with me, so the plasma rifle was either staying or gonna be sold. The minigun was a hell no. Being perfectly honest with myself, I would love to use it. My big wake up call was the thing was fucking heavy and I was going to waste ammo more than anything.

So no going Rambo with the minigun. Shame. It would have been fun the next time I had to fight Yogi, or any other Yao-guai.

I went through an inventory of what I had and what I needed to keep. The pistol, my trusty knives, shock sword, sniper rifle, and a mixed belt of ten frag grenades and two incendiary grenades. My standard travel assortment. I emptied out the four bags, arranging different stashes in my room. About three hundred Bottle Caps were hidden in a footlocker by the bed. Med supplies went in the refrigerator that was stashed in the room. The minigun and plasma rifle as well as the ammo for both went into a cabinet and tool locker both next to my door. I kept twelve stimpacks on me along with a two doses of each drug, as a just in case. I kept all the pistol and sniper rifle ammo, never knew when I might need some or need something to trade after all. By the time I finished sorting out my earnings from the day the sun had already gone down, and I was thirsty.

I figured it was time to visit Colin Moriarty's Saloon.

The bar was kind of Obvious, the two huge signs giving it away. I sighed, Dad was right when he said Moriarty was a drunken ego loaded Irish piss bag. I haven't even met the guy and I was sure the statement was true.

I walked in, getting a hello from a few people and a drunken cheer from Jericho who wasn't drinking so much as bathing in booze. I returned the greetings and took a seat next to My new ass kicking buddy. Judging from his appearance, he had been drinking since I beat his sorry behind in front of the town. "Hows it hanging kid?" He asked, and by god I swear his breath smelled like a distillery.

I tried to answer, but the smell was overpowering. "Barely." I responded, biting back a few coughing fits.

Jericho took another swig of whiskey laughing drunkenly. I made my way to the bar, only to get my first surprise of the night. I try not to be disturbed at what I'm looking at but I thought I was looking at a rotting corpse someone had propped up.

Then it looked at me, "What? Never seen a ghoul before smooth-skin?" The Corpse asked.

My stare lingered for a second longer than was necessary. "Huh sorry, I spaced out for a second there." I reached out a hand in friendly greeting, secretly enjoying the fact that my suit came with gloves. "I'm Louis, I just got into town a few days ago."

The Ghoul accepted the offered hand, shaking it with a stunned look, "Well then smooth- I mean Louis, its a pleasure to meet you. My name's Gob, Megaton's resident ghoul."

"Pleasure to me you. What do you have on tap?"

The ghoul smiled at me, and I tried not to flinch. "Beer is three caps, whiskey is seven, wine is five caps, nuka-cola is three, wasteland water is two, and some purified water for twelve caps."

I thought about it, and pulled nineteen caps from my side pouch. "Gimme a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of purified water."

Gob took the caps and handed me the bottled drinks. I popped the top the water and took a refreshing gulp, I almost did the same with the whiskey until I noticed the seal on the alcohol was already broken. I looked at the booze in the clear colored bottle. I glanced at Jericho's drink, which was several shades darker than mine. I sniffed at the bottle and jerked my head back at the light smell of ammonia and urine.

I turned to Gob, very annoyed, "What the fuck is this?" I yelled, "Why is there piss in my drink?"

Every one of the Saloon patrons taking a drink spit out anything that was in their mouth. A few of the smarter people sniffed at their drinks, a few turned to Gob similarly angry.

I glared at Gob, who was obviously alarmed. The ghoul was stammering protests, "Folks I don't know whats going on! I don't even have a nose to smell the piss with!"

Someone threw the first bottle, and it smashed against the walls behind the bar. That smashing bottle drew my target from the back rooms. Colin Moriarty came from the back room adjusting his pants and yelling with a heavy Irish accent, "Whats going on here? Why's everybody throwing around good whiskey!" Colin yelled.

"Your Whiskey's got piss in it!" Someone yelled.

Moriarty blanched for a moment, then got riled up. "Who's been saying such crap! Tell me is that little bastard Andy spreading lies again?" he bellowed.

I stepped in front of the crowd, "No you Irish piss-bag, we can smell the piss!" I took the bottle in my hand and let it fly, the piss-whiskey bottle hit the doorway above Moriarty and shattered soaking the man with the tainted drink. A few other patron's followed my idea, shattering more bottles near the now soaked asshole.

"Let's kick his piss soaked ass!" I yell out to the crowd. Sure enough the mob mentality takes effect, they block off Moriarty from running out of the Saloon, then proceed to beat the love of God into him.

I chuckle and pop open a still sealed bottle of nuka-cola I swiped from behind the counter. I took a seat by Jericho just in time to hear Moriarty scream, "Not my blarney stone!"

Jericho and I shared a glance and clinked our drinks together, making a silent toast to Colin never reproducing. The public beating continued until Sheriff Simms came in and broke up the crowd. After the mob was broken up most of the people left to return to their homes or tell the rest of the town how Moriarty got the shit kicked out of him.

With the Saloon mostly empty I faced Gob with a deal, "What do you say I give you a hundred caps and you let me poke around the back room a bit?"

Gob gave me a hard look, and for a second I thought he was going to tell me to piss off, "Louis, make it one fifty and half of any caps you find and its a deal."

"Two hundred and one quarter of the caps. If I find any proof of ownership I throw those in too."

"Deal!"

I really doubted Moriarty had any sort of 'proof of ownership' But I was sure a greedy sonofabitch like him would have a stash of all the caps he made somewhere. In the back there was a locked fridge with a ton of drinks in it, another cabinet which had Moriarty's stash of caps and a computer with all the dirty facts of megaton on it. I stole all twenty six bottles of nuka-cola and seven bottles of purified water, Moriarty lost all seven thousand caps he had stashed away in his cabinet, and the password to Moriarty's computer was easy to find out. The dumb bastard had left it in a note taped to the bottom of one of the cabinet shelves.

I gotta admit, most people would never guess 'lotsacaps' for a password.

It seemed Colin kept a record of not only the bar tabs, but a set of notes on each resident. I read all the details I could and loaded the lot of it to my pip-boy. Either great blackmail material or useful info for later. Plus I know a lot of the residents would love to hear Moriarty's opinion of them, if only to have an excuse to kick the shit outta him again.

I kept reading, the incident between Jenny and Jericho was interesting to say the least. However, from the way it sounded at the Lantern I was sure that there was more to the story than what Colin implied.

It was the articles about my Dad that got my attention. I skimmed over the vague recollections about the deals made back when I was a kid. Already knew about it and didn't care. The more important part about Galaxy news Radio, that was far more satisfying to learn about.

My business complete, I switch off the computer. After resetting the password to 'Lots of caps', I figured that would royally piss of Colin after he got back and found his stash and bar raided.

I returned to Gob, informed him of the password change and gave him another two thousand caps as agreed. I could have been a bastard and gave him shit for change but I figured kindness worked better. I left the bar, leaving Jericho sprawled and snoring in the corner. I placed the mother-load of caps with the rest of my lock box stash under the bed at Moira's.

The entries in Moriarty's terminal bothered me, particularly the way Colin phrased it. '-waiting for an opportunist-' was bad enough, but '-he can stay here until that damn bomb explodes in the center of town for all I care -'

That worried me. I never checked the bomb before, I didn't think it would still be active after two hundred plus years of dormancy and neglect. However, Colin seemed to have a way of finding stuff out, and I'd already hear enough about the mysterious Mr. Burke. Enough to know that I don't want to risk the bomb being detonated. The clock on my pip-boy read eleven fifty eight. Most people were asleep, so it stood to reason that nobody would notice me disarming the bomb. Just in case of the weird ass preacher still being awake and irradiating himself, I grabbed my helmet and activated the stealth field, before heading to the center of town to disarm the object of potential doom.

To my surprise, someone else was already tinkering on the bomb. A man in a greyish tan suit, dark brown hat, and glasses. A man fitting mister Burke's description.

I drew a dagger from a boot and my trusty pistol. Quietly as I could I crept up to the mysterious bastard. With only a few feet in between us I rushed him, kicked his legs out, placed my dagger to his throat with my arm around him, and forced my gun into the small of his back. The close contact disrupted the stealth field, forcing it off.

The man dropped to his knees from the assault but I held him firmly. I didn't want to risk him getting lose and returning the favor.

"What were you doing to the bomb?" Burke stayed silent, I dud the knife into his throat, "Answer me!" I demanded.

"You just made a powerful enemy, best watch your back kid." He said simply, his voice drawling.

"Answer my question Burke." I dug the knife in deeper, drawing a bead of blood.

"Why do you knuckle-draggers insist on doing things the hard way? Very well."

"what-" the mysterious bastard spun, slicing at me with a hidden knife, I fired three shots the moment he moved. The first missed, the second and third shots caught him in the stomach. The man's facial expression didn't change. He just looked at me bored.

"I just had this suit tailored." He stated calmly, as if I had just spayed him with mud, not bullets.

I stared at him in shock, the bullets in my gun were armor piercing. They should have gone straight threw the guy and killed him. The suit wasn't even stained with blood.

I aimed and fired, five more shots entered his chest. With not a single drop of blood. The man sighed, and punched me in the guts. The blow knocked nineteen years of air from my lungs and I felt ready to pass out.

Burke stood above me, looking down on me in disgust. "You know what the difference is between you and me?" he asked, "I make this look good."

I tried a surprise jab at his guts, hoping I could make the bullets hurt. Instead my fist hit steel. The Armor plating of something absolutely bulletproof.

"Do you like it? Its something Alistair Tenpenny gave me for being his right hand man. A prototype power armor breastplate. Nothing prewar could pierce it. But so far, nothing can remove it either."

I cradled my hand as the bastard mocked me, he was sure I was going to die. That he was gong to kill me. Burke drew a gun from his jacket, a silenced 10mm like mine. Just as he loaded a fresh clip into his gun, I sliced at legs forcing him to jump back, then I emptied my clip directly at his face. The move caught him by surprise and two shots drilled him threw his face. The shots tore off his right cheek and pierced his right eye, turning his face into an ugly resemblance to a ghoul.

The bastard somehow smiled anyways, even with the blood pouring out of him. "It doesn't matter. Any moment now, you'll be dead! Are you excited to see what that's like?" He laughed.

I loaded another clip in and shot him again in the head. The fresh 10mm bullet entered his forehead and splattered his opened skull on the dirt.

I checked the bomb. A device had been rigged to it. A device with a ticking down clock on it. Explosives were never my forte. I was always better at fixing things like computers or guns than messing with any sort of bomb. I knew that if I ran I'd be dead before I got even close to vault one-oh-one.

I took a tool kit off of Burke's corpse, and removed the silencer on my pistol. I pointed it straight in the air and emptied the clip. The staccato of gunfire woke up a lot of people and drew them from their homes.

"Burke set off the bomb!" I yelled as loud as I could, "Get out of the town! The Bomb is going to blow!" The people got the message and started screaming and yelling. I ignored them, the time read five minutes twenty-three seconds. I opened Burke's tool kit and started taking apart the case and connections between Burke's Device and the Megaton bomb. The circuits were advanced, and the screaming wasn't helping my concentration. The device was simple to take apart and remove from the detonator, however the activation signal had already been sent. I kept the timer going, now reading three minutes and seven seconds, and started on directly disabling the bomb. The prewar tech was complex but wasn't intended to be tamper resistant. It was designed to be dropped from a plane or launched to explode. The lack of tamper proof design didn't make it any easier. I had to physically fit myself into the bomb to pull out the actual detonation switch. I heard an electronic sigh and a disarming clank and hoped to god I did it right. Just in case I pulled the detonator caps from the bomb. It was impossible to rig now.

I climbed out of the bomb, feeling soaked in radiation despite the suit's filters and protections. I needed a double dose of rad away.

I Collapsed on the ground, worn out and weary of the renewed pain in my ribs. The dead bastard Burke had to have snapped the cracked bones. Doc Church was gonna be pissed I was back in his clinic in the morning.

After an hour or so of silence from the Abandoned streets of Megaton, Sheriff Simms cautiously approached me. "Sypher? What happened with the bomb? Did you disarm it?"

I Nodded, and gestured to Burke's corpse. "Burke rigged the bomb. Tried to blow up the town. He mentioned something about a guy named Tenpenny."

Simms grabbed my arm and helped me back to Moira's, meanwhile I was busy injecting myself with stimpacks and med-x with my pip-boy.

By the time Simms helped me kick back in my room the drugs were luring me to sleep. I tried to resist, but the bed was comfy and I was exhausted. I kicked off my boots and and helmet then started snoring into my pillow.

The next day was bright and sunny, the usual for the wastelands. I made mental checklist of what I needed to do.

First I had to find out more about Galaxy News Radio. Dad left me a trail of bread crumbs to follow, and I already knew that if worst came to worse we were to meet at the Jefferson Memorial.

Second I needed to find more ammo for my rifle, I had only two spare clips and what remained in the rifle.

Third was to get a few travel supplies besides the medicine.

Fourth was to pick out a trustworthy traveling companion. If the Enclave were about it could only mean trouble, they never played nice before and I would be an idiot to think that they were going to be nice now. Also I couldn't forget about the raiders and scavengers that would be drooling over the prewar tech that I was carrying on me. I would be a complete idiot to not have at least one person guarding my back.

Plus I knew the road would be boring otherwise.

My search for ammo led me to a very bad situation, I had to talk to Moira again. She was the town's resident merchant and ammo seller so I had to ask her.

"Moira?"

"Yes Louis?" she asked in that cheery voice.

"Do you have any .308 caliber bullets? Of any type?"

"I have only fifty-eight bullets. They cost five caps apiece."

I did a quick bit of mental math, "Two hundred and ninety caps? You've got to be kidding! Three caps each."

"No dice Mr. Sypher. Bullets for that rifle are rare. In fact the only thing harder to find would be BB pellets and .44 magnum rounds."

"Oh come on!" I protested, "Can't you order them? Or at least make me some ?"

Moira looked at me amazed. "Make ammo?" She questioned.

Her eyes widened and I realized I had made a very, very bad mistake. Her smile brightened and widened so much I thought her head would split. "What a Marvelous Idea Mr. Sypher! I could corner the production on wasteland ammo! I could make thousands of caps and fund my research!"

I groaned, and cradled my head. I had created an unintentional monster. Moira ignored me as a potential customer and started tearing apart and reorganizing her shop. On a workbench she stuck together a bunch of odd parts and tools. It took a few minutes until I realized what she was making, A crude reloading bench.

After an hour of her tinkering and me doing maintenance on my guns she yelled up the stairs at me.

"All done! We can trade now!"

I returned to the combination store and workshop lugging the minigun and ammo with me. I also had the plasma rifle in my bundle as well, however I kept the micro-fusion cells in my room.

"Okay Moira, " I placed the heavy artillery and ammo on an empty table, "What can this stuff get me?"

Moira looked it over and I swear she drooled on the plasma rifle.

"I'll give you all my .308 ammo for the minigun and two hundred caps for the belts. Gimme that plasma rifle and I'll make the 5mm into more ammo for your rifle at half cost."

It was fair terms. Both of the heavy weapons were useless to me. We shook hands on it and she passed me two bags, one with the loose ammo the other held the caps.

"Pleasure doing business with you ma'am."

I went back to my room and started reloading my empty clips with the normal .308 bullets. I felt better with four more fresh clips for my rifle. I loaded together my standard gear and left the loose materials behind in the appropriate places in my room.

I walked outside the Craterside supply just in time to walk right into Jericho. The aged survivor barreling me over.

I shook my head to get the stars out of my eyes. At the rate I was sustaining head injuries I started to plan constantly wearing my helmet.

Jericho helped me to my feet, "Come on man, Simms wants to see you. Something about a reward."

"What?" I asked confused, "What reward?"

"Will you move your heroic butt before I shove my boot up it?"

"Alright, alright! I'm going!" Jericho still gave me a kick in the ass anyways.

Simms and most of Megaton were gathered around the Bomb, a few started applauding when I got to the middle of town.

Simms was in the middle right in front of the bomb that almost killed us all. "Louis, you saved us all from the bomb exploding. We would all be dead if you hadn't stopped Burke. As a reward we want you to have the home by the gate. No charge."

The crowd cheered, and I gratefully accepted my new Megaton home.

I managed to choke out a stunned "Thank you." before Jericho and Simms dragged me over to the Bar outside the Lantern where Andy Stahl was already busting out drinks.

The town celebrated their survival with me, Jericho and Simms starting the festivities. To my shame my insides failed me and I fell off the stool after the fifth shot kicked in.

My thought as I hit the dirt was that Jericho would never let me live it down.

A few hours later and some bottles of purified water, my head was clear and on to the next part of my list. I needed info on Galaxy News, food supplies for travel, and a partner to watch my back.

At the moment I thought of it Jericho and I were heading towards Moriarty's Saloon to see if Gob wanted to join us in our second round of drinks.

"Jericho, want to do me a favor?"

"What do you want now Sypher?"

"Wanna travel with me? Think about it, tons of caps, lots of shooting, and the possibility that we'll blow up at least one building!"

Jericho looked at me disbelieving. "Your shitting me right? Why in gods name would I wanna travel the wastes with you when I can got this place to rule?"

"I'll pay you a thousand caps and a share of any loot while we travel."

"Deal."

"Really?"

"Dammit Sypher! What did I just say? Now lets go get Gob before I sober up and tell you to fuck off."

I laughed, I had an unlikely partner in the form of an ex-raider mercenary. I'm either an idiot or a genius.

Moriarty's Saloon was empty apart from Nova and Gob. Somewhere in the back I could hear Moriarty cursing with his Irish accent in full blaze. Apparently, Colin found out about my little prank, and was not to happy about it. I looked at Gob. "How mad is he?" I asked.

Gob looked at me and grinned. "Absolutely furious Louis. He's been robbed, beaten to an inch of his life, and locked out of his own personal computer."

I looked at Gob with a straight face. "Really? I'm sorry to hear that happened."

Gob and Jericho kept a straight face for only a few seconds longer, before we all started laughing at Moriarty's expense. It was a long and hard laugh, which was no surprise when the noise we made drew Colin from the back rooms.

"What the fuck are you chumps laughing at!" He yelled.

"A very pissed off Irish guy." I said.

"Whats the matter, lose your lucky charms?" Jericho jeered.

We started laughing again, even Nova joined in, which just made him angrier. "Don't you bunch of shits laugh at me!" He screamed, and swung at Gob. His fist missed and over extended, Me and Jericho both swung at him. We both slammed him in the face and ribs. The Irishmen dropped arse over teakettle and was furious. He reached under the bar and drew out a shotgun, black iron with a twelve shot cylinder clip.

I acted fast and snatched a frag grenade from my belt, I popped the pin out but held the explosive firmly the trigger would be released if I let go. Moriarty leveled his gun at me, his eyes widened at the unpinned grenade.

"Looks like we got a stalemate. You kill me we all die, I kill you we all die."

"Put the pin back in buyo. You don't want to die anymore than I do."

"Try me Moriarty. I'd love to see you escape before the grenade pops. Even if you did the bar would fall apart when the rest of my grenades go."

"Your bluffing."

"Try me. I'll meet you in hell."

Gob tried to take a swing at Moriarty, the blow catching the Irishman in the head. The Man staggered but didn't drop, and leveled his shotgun at my ghoul friend. Jericho took the opportunity and smashed a bar stool into Colin's skull. The bar owner dropped to the ground, bleeding from the skull.

I put the pin back in the grenade before turning to Nova and Gob, "Guys, want to own a bar?" I asked them.

I explained to them my plan. We tied Moriarty up in a chair, keeping only his right arm free. Then we grabbed a pencil and paper and sat around playing card games till the Irish asshole woke up.

When Colin came to, it was nearly an hour later and I was fifty caps in debt to both Nova and Jericho.

"God it feels like Nova busted me head with a nail bat again." Moriarty mumbled. We started snickering, with Gob and Nova high-fiveing.

"Wake up ugly, "I said slapping the man a few times, "we got business to discuss."

Moriarty's eyes met mine, "You! Sypher's brat! What is the meaning of this?" He demanded, trying to struggle out of the ropes.

I pulled one of my knives out, it caught his attention instantly. "Were going to discuss the price of your bar. It seems I have all the dirt you have on the town-people, and the bunch of us," I gestured to the group, "have all your savings."

Moriarty's face turned an interesting shade of red, I idly wondered if it was a mutation. "What's it gonna cost me to get out of this alive?" He growled out.

"Nothing much, " I stated, "Just your Signature and the Bar."

"Never!" He barked out.

"Either you do it and live, or you don't and we kill you and say you did." I stated. "Either way before you leave, the bar is gonna belong to Gob and Nova."

He spat in my eye, "Your gonna have to kill me you little whore-son! This is My Bar! No little son of a slut is gonna take that from me!" He screamed.

I slugged him as hard as I could, and relished in the feeling of the man's teeth coming loose under the force of the blow. "Insulting me is fine, but don't go there or I will end you."

The piss bag spat blood at me, "Your mother was a whore you fuck-head! I mounted her myself more times than the rest of the waste-"

I silenced him with a fist to the throat, "Sign the papers or I will kill you." I drew out his shotgun, cambering a round deliberately in front of him.

I pushed the quickly written bill of sale in front of him, and he signed it. The moment he was untied the bastard tried to swipe the shotgun from me, I felt no regret when it tore his left arm into Limburger.

I turned to Jericho, "Find Simms, tell him Moriarty made a play on my life."

Jericho nodded and ran out the door. I handed Gob the deed, pointedly ignoring Moriarty's shaking form. "I think this belongs to you now."

Simms and Jericho made it back within minutes, both training Chinese assault rifles on Colin. "What happened here?" Simms questioned.

I gestured to Colon, who was still screaming on the floor. "We were buying the bar from him, he double crossed us and was going to kill us and keep the caps. I took his shotgun from him and blew his arm off."

Simms nodded to me, and questioned the other two. Everyone agreed with the story except my victim who yelled that I was a lying psycho-path. Simms believed us, and started escorting the crippled Moriarty to the town gates.

"Why's Simms taking Moriarty to the gates?" I asked Jericho.

"You break a law in Megaton your either dead or run out of town." He replied. "Its the law of the wasteland."

I nodded, satisfied. I didn't see a jail anywhere in town after all.

I whistled a merry tune after leaving the newly named 'Gob's Saloon' and went to the brass Lantern for Dinner. Andy Stahl was going to be on an all time high when he heard Moriarty was kicked outta town with his arm blown off.

Three hours later I staggered back to my New home after celebrating with Andy, Jenny, and Leo. Leo was pretty pissed when Jenny let slip that I force-detoxed him, but he laughed about it later without a care. I pulled out the key to my place, and walked into my house to the most screwed up thing I had ever seen since I showed up.

All my belongings were piled up on a couch, the whole house was furnished like a scrapped vault project, there was a refrigerator and other working prewar tech in the place. None of that was what was bothering me. What surprised me beyond anything I could comprehend was Moira Brown working on a Mr. Handy in nothing but her underwear. Both pieces a clean shade of blue.

"Moira? What the hell are you doing here?" I questioned loudly.

Moira jumped, flipping a switch on the robot causing it to spray her with water. Very cold water if her screaming was any clue. "I can explain!" She said, after turning off the spray. I vaguely noticed the lack of a sugary sweet tone in her voice.

"I really wish you would Moira, Cause this just hits my weird shit tolerance level."

"I was gonna ask if I could move in with you?"

I sighed, "Why?"

"I kinda need the room in the store for the new munitions factory I'm making. I had to move the other projects to the bedrooms."

I cradled my head in my hands."Why my house?"

"Why not?" She countered.

'Why not indeed...' I thought a little bitterly. I could think of a few ways that it could be worse. The moment the thought crossed my mind, my drinking buddy walked into the house. I was wondering how badly my Karma had fallen.

"Am I interrupting something?" Jericho asked.

"The Death of my sanity."


	5. Minefield Mayhem

"What in the name of Kenneth Tobey's cardboard belt are you two doing here? " I asked the next morning.

All night I had to listen to a symphony of noise, curtsey of Moira renovating my house in ways that I did not want to know anything about. The next morning I found Moira in my guest room half hanging off the bed, Jericho was on the couch and all my stuff was sprawled in the floor. I pointedly ignored the Mr. Handy , that was now talking to me like a prewar stereotype butler.

The two freeloaders were currently trying in vein to explain why they were in my house, and why I shouldn't shoot the two of them for the headache they were giving me.

Thankfully the in house robot came with pain killers. Otherwise I would have shot Jericho on general principal. In the legs. Twice.

"I can pay you rent you know." Moira explained.

"That's not the point!" I exclaimed, "I'm annoyed that I just got this house and you two moved in without even asking me!"

Jericho was drinking whiskey already, proving his happy hour extended to all twenty four hours of the day. "Come on Buddy, whats the problem with us staying with you?"

"Increasing stress levels, potential pain killer addiction, number of bullets potentially wasted trying to wing you, and loads of damage to my teeth and liver from drinking." I listed, "Do I have to go on?"

"Hey now," Moira cut in, "We're not that bad. Besides we'll pay you to stay here and replace or repair anything we break."

"Fine," I yelled, "Five hundred caps a month. Each!"

"Deal." They both said, tossing me two bags heavily loaded with caps. I sighed, I should have figured that would happen.

"Cheers rookie!" Jericho yelled, chugging his drink.

I was already dreading the new few weeks.

The day went the same as always, I went to the Lantern for my free breakfast from the Stahl family. I got into a shooting contest between Stockholm, me and Simms. Stockholm royally beat us with his hunting rifle. His winning shot was on a scouting raider, in one ear and out the other. Before the raider showed up it was a mismatched show of someone picking a target then the other two spotting it and shooting it. I swear Stockholm has to have cybernetic implants or something to make the shots he did. Later in the day I revisited Moira's shop. The wasteland's premiere mad scientist was busy at work on the power armors again. From what I could tell, she was somehow trying to mesh together all five suits into one much bigger suit. It looked like the form of a scrap metal giant.

"Hey Moira!" I called, "Got anymore work for me?"

The redhead looked at me inquisitively for a moment. Then snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah!" She rushed around the workshop toppling over stuff and making her mess worse. "I got an order for frag mines and other explosives. Apparently Rivet City needs them."

"Okay, whats the catch?" I asked, suspicious.

"How good are you at handling explosives?" She asked smirking.

"What?"

"The only place I know of that you can get mines of any type without dying horribly is Minefield."

I groaned, "Why don't I like that name?"

"Minefield is a small area that's been filled with explosives of all sorts." Moira explained, cheery as ever. "Nobody knows when or why, but someone covered that neighborhood with bombs and barricaded it with old cars and other wreckage. There's only one way in, but the deeper you get the more likely you'll set off a trap and blow up."

I looked at her. I could not believe she told me all of that, but still thought I would do it. "Why in gods name do you think I would go there for mine salvage then?"

She smiled. "There's a massive weapons cash in the ruins of a building in the center. Whoever set up all the bombs there must have also placed the weapons."

"How much are we talking here? A few hunting rifles?"

Moira pulled out a list. "Two rocket launchers, six different rifles, a few suits of military combat armor, lots of bombs, at least two Gatling lasers, and more ammo boxes than I could count."

I whistled a long low note. "Wow, anything else?"

Moira nodded enthusiastically, "What's just what I could see past a hole in the wall. The whole ruined building could be full of stuff for all we know."

"I get the weapons cache if you get all the mines?" I asked.

Moira nodded, "All I need are the mines, the weapons are yours."

"Okay, deal." We shook on it, and she handed me a crudely drawn map. I took the directions and input them into my pip-boy's map feature. The wrist mounted computer quickly calculated the route and details of the map. Soon I was looking a nice, clean, digital read out of Moira's map.

Moira watched all of it fascinated. "I need to get one of those." She stated.

"You'll have to get one from a vault-tec place." I stated.

"I'll pay you ten thousand caps for yours." She bargained.

"No deal Moira, I'm kinda attached to this one. If I get my hands on another I'll consider selling it to you."

I packed my usual assortment for the trip, taking with me an extra set of grenades. Getting Jericho's lazy butt awake was a more difficult problem.

"If you wanna go get blown up that's fine with me." Jericho stated, half asleep on my couch.

"I payed you a thousand caps to cover my ass while I'm in the wastes. Do your job Dammit!"

"I payed half those caps back to stay here! You can go off on your own!"

He was being stubborn, and again I resisted shooting him. ":Look, I need someone to help me loot the weapons cache in Minefield. Otherwise I don't get the fuck ton of caps."

At the mention of loot and money Jericho jumped up, "Well why didn't you say so?" he asked.

"Because your a greedy bastard." I stated plainly.

* * *

><p>We both finished gathering our loot, with Jericho pocketing a dozen pineapples and plasma grenades. Simms greeted us at the gates, and he headed north towards a place called big town.<p>

The joys of the wasteland was there was no traffic, no annoyingly loud sounds as we walked down the road. When we passed a broken down elementary school, Jericho pointed it out to me.

"This place is a raider base." He stated, crouching behind some burnt out buildings.

I joined him behind the cover, ready to kick on the stealth field when needed. "What? How can you tell?"

Jericho pointed at crude graffiti marking some of the walls and doors of the building. "Those are gang tags. Different bands of raiders use them as markers for whats in the places and what they are good for."

"Whats this place then?"

"A raider training camp."

I thought about the situation. If we were this close to the raiders, we could do something about their constant assaults on Megaton. "How good can you throw?" I asked him.

Jericho looked at me, "Pretty far, why?"

I pulled out two of my incendiary grenades, and handed one to him. "These are incendiary grenades, they make fires rather than the usual blast."

Jericho looked at the canister in his hand and grinned, it was a very creepy look for him. "Kid, you and I are gonna be good friends. How many of these do you have?"

"Four." I replied.

"Hand me another. If we toss these into the broken windows on the bottom floor we can burn them out before they can get away!"

I passed him a second fire bomb, "They've got a five second timer. Pull the pin and throw." I informed him.

"Lets get to work."

We took points on opposite corners of the School and tossed our bombs right into the windows, then ran past. Within minutes a blaze erupted from the rear of the school were Jericho tossed his grenades.

"What the hell did you throw them into?" I asked.

Jericho smiled at me. "There was a room with gas leaking out of it. I figured it was a good a place as any."

I groaned. My helper was a fire-bug. Just my luck. "I'm not giving you anything else that makes fire. You'll burn the whole wasteland down at this rate."

We stood for a moment, watching as the raider camp burned down. A few raiders jumped out of the upper windows, desperate to survive. Not that it mattered much, the building was already collapsing when we turned our backs to it.

I felt kind of bad that I didn't give them a fighting chance, but then again I didn't figure they ever felt bad for the people they hurt.

* * *

><p>The trip was fairly boring for the next hour or so. Nothing but the same broken homes, and ruined streets as the last few miles. Big town changed everything however.<p>

We came to the nice, sheltered settlement. Walls made from the skeletons of cars and scrap metal. stacked and welded together, they made for a decent set of defensive walls. However the sounds of a fire fight were coming from the front, and angry yells bellowed past as me and Jericho rushed to help.

"Now try and hide! From this!" A voice yelled. Moments later I heard the full auto fire of a minigun.

The scene was brutal, a few slaughtered people were laying in the road, the remnants of a merchant party. From inside the walls I could see people shooting at the attackers.

More super mutants. Hurray.

The big green bastards were firing at the town with a minigun and missile launcher. A few others stood on the side with rifles in their hand. They looked like a hunting party of some sort. I remembered the mutant I saw munching on a woman at the Super Duper Mart. I didn't like what this group implied.

I shoved Jericho behind the wall before he could attract their attention.

"Listen. I'll turn on my stealth field and try and take a few out with my sniper rifle and some head shots. When they start to search for me, toss a few grenades at the one with the launcher. We cant let them keep that."

Jericho nodded. "Fine, But if they come near me I'm opening up with my rifle."

I nodded, and switched on the stealth field. The mutants never noticed the blur crouching a few yards away, and I was glad. Close quarters with one of these freaks would probably end me.

I took aim at the mutant behind the group, aiming straight for his left eye. My rifle coughed, and his eye was gone. The other two turned, offering a perfect shot to the back of the next one's head. The third yelled something, catching the attention of the other two. They turned to the remaining rifle carrier, just in time for the minigun user to take a shot to the neck. The remaining two took cover behind trees and rocks, blocking my line of sight.

Jericho took the opportunity to toss two frag grenades at them, the blasts flushing out the missile carrier, and severely pissing off the surviving rifle carrier. The pissed mutant screamed and fired at random, rushing out from behind his cover. My last shot caught him in the chest, and he rushed in my direction like a charging Brahmin. Jericho covered me by clipping him on his side with a few semi-automatic bursts. The charging super mutant fell to the dirt, screaming obscenities in its distorted voice. I placed a .308 caliber shot to his brain, and he fell silent.

Me and Jericho approached the front of the town with caution. Jericho was the only one in view, I was still hidden by the stealth field.

We entered big town, using a little rope bridge that was over a liquid filled trench. Jericho and I bother peaked around, looking for any signs of survivors. The small area between the houses was completely barren. If it wasn't for the constructed walls and partially rebuilt houses, I would swear the place was abandoned.

"Hold it! Take another step and your mutant food!"

I turned around and spotted half a dozen teens and an adult pointing various weapons at Jericho. A brown hired boy in scavenger's clothes had a revolver pointed directly at Jericho's neck. Jericho did not move a muscle. He had to have been in a situation like this before.

I switched off the stealth field, and pointed my rifle at the crowd. "All right people, is this how you thank someone who saves your ass?" I questioned.

The group turned from Jericho to me, except for the kid with his gun at Jericho's neck. He stupidly left his gun facing Jericho while he turned to face me. Jericho took advantage of this fact by Knocking the gun from the kid's hand and jamming his rifle into the boy's back.

"Back up,everyone of you little nose pickers drops your guns or the kid's guts go on the ground." Jericho yelled.

The group quickly surrendered their weapons, backing up slowly.

I lowered my rifle, "Can someone please explain to me what the hell is going on in this place?" I asked.

The oldest of the group turned to me, "We thought you were raiders. Usually we get pounded on by either the mutants or the raiders. We haven't seen help in weeks."

"Okay, shouldn't the fact that the mutants are dead point out that we were trying to help?" I asked.

"We had to be sure, there's not many of us left."

"Okay... Understandable. Stupid, but understandable."

"Why don't you kids just leave? Head to a bigger settlement like Megaton or Rivet City?" Jericho asked.

The adult in leather armor answered again. "We tried, there's a raider base in a school between here and Megaton, we cant make it without getting shot at."

I grinned unseen behind my helmet visor, while Jericho laughed. The kids and adult looked at us like we were insane. "What are you laughing at?" A redheaded teen asked us.

"We burned down that school with a few bombs on our way here." I replied. I was just raking in the good karma today.

The brown haired boy with the gun to his back still had issues with us, "Is that so? Well then, what exactly are you doing here?"

Jericho lowered the gun from the kid's back, "We're on our way to scavenge a weapons cache from minefield. We heard the mutants, and came running in to help."

The redhead looked at me with a lovesick expression that made me uneasy, "Really?" She asked, "Wow you guys are our heroes then!"

I felt the urge to twitch. I felt this would be a problem later on.

"If that's true, we could go with you. Help you get the weapons back to Megaton. It's the least we could do, and it would mean a few extra guns helping to guard the stuff."

Me and Jericho looked at each other. His look said that he really didn't care. I turned to the guy in leather armor, "Fine you can tag along. I'm Louis, He's Jericho."

The adult introduced the kids. "The redhead with idol worship in Bittercup." The redhead waved, and smiled at me. "The Brown haired boy you pointed the gun at is flash." The teen sneered at Jericho. "Red's the black one." the only one there of African descent nodded at us, and picked up her rifle from the ground, she was dressed in all red clothes. "I'm Dusty."

"Obviously." Jericho cut in, grinning.

Dusty gave Jericho a glare, "Its whats my parents named me ass-hat. Anyways, last one the list is our resident thief. Jack 'sticky-hands' we call him sticky for short."

Dusty moved to gesture at someone, only to look confused for a moment, before sighing.

"Sorry folks, Sticky wants to introduce himself in his own way." Dusty stated.

I looked at him questioningly, "What do you mean?" I asked.

I got my answer from a clicking metal sound and felt a point at my throat, and something wide being pressed into my back.

"Gotcha!" a teen voice exclaimed from the air.

My reflexes kicked in and I slammed both of my elbows back, before using my arm to grapple the unseen foe. I hit something, wrapped my arm around it and flipped it into the dirt and pointed my rifle at the space.

"Show yourself!" I commanded.

The ground before me flickered and a teen with a dirty mop of hair appeared in the dirt. Attached to his arms with multiple little watches. I knew what they were and groaned. Stealth boys. The American prewar knock off of my stealth armor.

"Sticky I presume?" I asked.

"Damn man, why'd you try to take my head off? I was just joking." He whined. Sticky hopped up from the dirt twirling a knife in one hand, and a weird mess of parts shaped like a crude crossbow in the other.

"Didn't anyone tell you its not smart to sneak up on people?"

"Nope."

"Now you know."

* * *

><p>A few hours were spent gathering weapons and supplies, everything else was left behind for the scavengers to pick at. Big town had become another empty shell, a remnant of a failed settlement.<p>

The kids were armed with a few pistols and the rifles we scavenged from the super mutants. We gathered two containers of 5mm ammo from the minigun, and twelve clips of ammo from the mutants. The kids got the rifles and the clips, we got a promise not to point at us when they used them.

Flash insisted on using his .44 revolver, Dusty strapped his hunting rifle to his back and armed himself with the newer assault rifle. Red and Bittercup also took the rifles with now problem. Sticky insisted that he stick to using his 'dart gun', when I asked why his response was simple.

"My aim really sucks with guns, I mean it really sucks."

Considering all we had to spare was automatic weapons, I didn't wanna try my luck.

The remaining journey to minefield was sparse and boring, a few dogs and a giant fly crossed our path but didn't bother us. I got to see a bit more of the Wasteland, and surprisingly I saw a few plants growing. Nothing much, mostly weeds. Still the fact that something was growing out here made me feel a shred of hope for the planet.

Minefield lived up to its name. It was a fortified prewar neighborhood resting against a hillside. A few rope bridges strung from the different houses, and walls of burnt out cars and scrap metal created a blockade from entering from any area except the front.

And non-existent gods above, there was an unmerciful fuck-ton of mines.

I noticed bear traps, frag mines, grenade bouquets, plasma mines, trip wires, more frag mines, swinging traps, even more frag mines, more plasma mines, and barb wire.

The whole ground level of the town looked like the definition of the phase 'obvious death trap'. Surprisingly there were no corpses laying about. Plenty of blood, fresh and dry alike. The death trap was worse than I thought, someone had to be living in the buildings.

We got to work, I disarmed the mines and explosives, Jericho and Dusty took shots to trigger the other traps or used grenades to trigger the traps at a safe distance. While we took everything apart Bittercup, Flash, Red and Sticky stood guard or stored the explosives. We cleared a path straight to a small playground that was relatively intact.

That's when everything went to hell.

I heard the first gunshot, and saw the dead give away of a Sniper's hidden roost. "Get Down!" I yelled. The Bullet didn't catch any of us. Instead it hit one of the prewar cars. I didn't think anything of it, instead I pulled my own rifle and prepared to return fire.

The Sniper's second shot came from a different location, the target was still the same. The car that was barely five yards away. The second shot made a loud popping noise, and a burst of flame flowed from the wrecked vehicle. My eyes widened.

"Scatter!" I yelled, and took off for the playground wreckage. There were trees nearby it that could cover me from a sniper's bullet.

Behind me, I heard the frightened yells from my companions as someone else fire on them from behind us. Judging from the Jeering and yells we had raiders as well.

I hid behind the trees just as the car detonated. Shrapnel flew across the open air, I heard a scream and the sound of a meaty thump.

I turned back to Jericho and the others. They seemed fine, they had wedged themselves in between a house and the scrap wall, and were now returning fire on the raiders that had followed us in.

The Sniper wasn't to happy about the raiders either, I heard three shots fired in rapid succession. All of them took the heads off of the wasteland's murderous bandits.

More raiders poured in, to my disdain I could see at least two dozen of them. All armed and pissed. I needed to take them out fast.

I pulled two shots of psycho from my bag. I popped the caps at the same time and pumped one into each arm. At the same time I pulled out a dose of Buffout. The prewar drugs took effect thanks to the mixed doses.

I felt pissed. I felt my blood pump. My muscles tensed painfully. I gotta say, I never felt more alive.

I rushed the raiders, discarding my guns for a sword and knife. The first was taken down with a vertical bisection, groin to face. The next was impaled with a flat thrust to the throat, then kicked off while another was slashed across the eyes with my throwing knife.

The raiders panicked. Between the sniper fire and the few of them suddenly having mortal wounds appear I would too. I just didn't care, I was enjoying this too much.

I pulled tow frag grenades and toss them to the sides, while I kick one in the face and slashed another along his bulging gut. The Raider covered his leaking chest and cried out only to have his neck break as I slammed the knife into him with a reverse grip.

After that point things got a little blurry for a few minutes. I saw red, and vaguely remember hacking and slashing every one of the raiders. If they didn't die from Sniper fire, they were maimed by my blades. I even remember strangling one who actually tried to swing at me with a baseball bat. Apparently the stealth field had failed from getting splashed with blood again. I felt something hurt me, something bad.

Then I felt so tired. I remember Jericho dragging me into a wrecked building as a huge explosion warmed me up.

I saw the weapons stash, but I was too tired to move.

I saw an old guy stand with me, bandaging my chest. I felt a lot of pressure on my chest. The Old man looked at me, and seemed so sad. He looked so familiar too.

The pain in my chest got worse, I saw the other put me into a bed. I remember my head feeling wet as something red flowed out of me. It tasted like copper.

I can remember Bittercup giving me water, trying to smile as she gave me something made of tasteless meat to eat.

The last thing I Remember was Jericho standing beside me, with me still helpless in bed, saying; "Your gonna pull through Kid. Your gonna make it you hear me?"

I thought of the color brown. I have no idea why. I felt stinging in my chest, and felt so sleepy.

I was just so tired.

I wondered why.


	6. Arms Race

When I woke up, everything in my chest hurt. There were at least ten needles sticking out of my chest, all leading to some sort of medical machine in a corner.

I looked around my room still lightly dazed. My stealth suit and weapons were missing. I was laying in a ruined bed, in nothing but my boxers and a muscle shirt.

Bittercup was asleep in a chair, wearing some brown armor with a logo of a two headed bear on it. Beside her wasn't the assault rifle I gave her but a Chinese Assault rifle that looked to be brand new.

The room I was in was lightly furnished. It could have been a prewar bedroom. It had dozens of books and shelves with what looked like random junk scattered about.

I saw my stuff packed into a top shelf near the only door in the room. I grabbed my possessions after unhooking myself from the machine. The whole thing was a modified auto-doc, and made an annoying long beeping noise after I unhooked it from me.

The noise woke up Bittercup who stared at me with wide amazed eyes, "Your awake! Your really awake!" She exclaimed.

I looked at her curiously, "What do you mean by that?" I asked, "What happened to me?"

She couldn't meet my eyes, it took her a few moments to answer. "After you went... berserk, you managed to slice up a bunch of the raiders. You either instant killed or sliced up a lot of them. But they had friends with them, one had a shotgun and got you up close in the chest."

I looked at my chest and noted that near all the needle marks were small craters in my skin, the scars from being peppered with buckshot.

I looked at Bittercup, "What happened afterward?"

She looked away, "The sniper, his name's Arkansas, or at least that's what he told us. He saved you. We grabbed you and dragged you here while he supplied cover fire. We've been holding up here for about a week now waiting for you to recover."

"What about my weapons and armor?" I asked her.

She gestured to the pile of gear I had, "The front of your suit is torn to shreds, and we don't know what happened to your sniper rifle after you started butchering the raiders."

"I see."

My chest felt tenderized, and it vaguely hurt to breathe. My head was pounding, and a felt a little bit of a tremble in my arms. The symptoms of a withdrawal, apparently my dosing myself before charging in wasn't the smartest thing I had done.

"Is there anything I can wear?" I asked Bittercup. The Stealth Suit was wrecked, I would need to have it repaired before I considered wearing it again.

The Girl cheerfully nodded, "Yep! Arkansas left you some armor too. He called it Veteran Armor." She handed me a bundle of clothes and materials that were wrapped in a tan trench-coat.

I slipped on the gear. Denim jeans, a long black shirt, Brown combat boots, There was also some sort of metallic prewar riot armor. I slipped it on over the shirt, and wore the tan Trench-coat over that.

It wasn't my stealth armor, but I felt undeniably bad-ass in it non the less.

"You look good." Bittercup quipped. She stared at me with a hungry look that made me want to avoid her.

The sound of gunfire took our attention, followed by the sound of a large explosive going off.

"Dammit!" She cursed, "The Raiders are attacking again."

"Again?"

She checked her weapon over and switched it to full auto, "Yeah again. The bastards are another traveling raiding party. They've been attacking since we got here. There's at least thirty left, but they never do much more than toss grenades and take wild shots at the windows. Arkansas thinks they're trying to flush us out."

I was getting impressed by this 'Arkansas' and I hadn't even met him yet.

I grabbed my pistol and we rushed out the stairs and up a few floors. Bittercup led the way, the entire inside of the building was booby trapped it seemed. We got to the fourth floor, and there was Jericho sitting next to a balding old man with a sniper rifle in his hands. Both had their rifles pointed out windows and firing shots at targets below.

"Seven!" Jericho called enthusiastically.

"Ten." The old man replied gruffly, pulling the trigger.

Past the windows I heard a dying scream. Jericho ducked beside the window and gave the old man a look, "You shot him in the dick? That's cruel old man."

The Old man looked back at Jericho, "Raiders ain't human." He replied, and returned to the window.

"Eleven." He called, and there was a woman's scream following his statement.

"How many are left?" I asked.

Jericho looked at me, surprise on his face, "There's gotta be thirty left. How you doing kid?"

"Twenty eight." Arkansas cut in.

"Huh?" Jericho replied.

"Twenty eight. Seventeen men, eleven women."

"Okay," Jericho turned to me, "So how are you doing kid? You had us worried for a bit."

I shrugged, "my chest feels shitty, I feel week, but I'm alive."

"You overdosed on whatever you took before rushing in, the shotgun blast didn't help much either. Anyways, Arkansas popped open his doors for us and hooked you up to that prewar robot doc."

Arkansas cut in again. "Welcome." He grunted, before firing off another shot. "Twelve." there was no cry out.

"So what do we have to work with?" I asked Jericho.

"The old man is from some west coast new world army. This was supposed to be the start of a base here on the east coast. So we've got shit loads of guns, and even more ammo. Also plenty of meds and replacement armor for the lot of us." The ex-raider replied with a hint of joy to his voice. I took note of the new rifle he was using, it was big.

Jericho noticed I was looking at his newest toy. "Like it?" He asked jokingly, "This baby is a 5.56 light machine gun. Its called a 'Bozar' Only one in the stash. This beast carries thirty shots and can fire either .203 or 5.56 caliber bullets at rapid fire bursts."

"That's your new assault rifle?" I exclaimed.

Jericho shook his head, "This ain't a _assault_ rifle. Its a _Sniper_ rifle"

I felt my jaw drop, "Your shitting me."

"Nope, now lets get you some of the good stuff." Jericho turned to Bittercup, "Get to a window girl. If I'm with Sypher your gonna be the old man's spotter."

Bittercup muttered something but took a post by a window.

Jericho led me out into another section of the fourth floor, whistling a merry tune and adjusting something on his monster silver rifle.

"So where are the other kids?" I asked.

"There all guarding the first floor in the unlikely event that the raiders get past the snipers."

"Did the kids get some super weapons too?"

Jericho laughed. "Not a chance. We've got them in some of the old soldier's armor but we got them loaded with the rifles we gave em."

We entered the room that held the weapons cache, and in that instant I was glad I took Moira up on the deal.

Rocket Launchers, dozens of ammo boxes, dozens of rifles, a few set of pistols, a few unmarked crates, Gatling guns of different flavors, different sets of armor, and enough explosives to end the world again. The thing that made me drool, the one rifle out of this merchant of death's wet dream, was a long slender rifle with a heavy frame. A .50 caliber Anti-Material Rifle.

The rifles were, in my heavily biased opinion, prewar civilization's greatest weapon. Ever.

The one before me was in perfect condition; it had carbon fiber parts, a rifle suppressor, an expanded sixteen shot magazine, custom bolt for faster loading, and a multiple filter Infrared and night vision scope.

The rifle was now mine, and I would end all of mankind before I would let this glorious weapon part from my grip.

I checked the stockpiles of ammo, searching for the .50 caliber that would make my post apocalyptic life compete. As I found not only what I was searching for, but ammo variations, I found faith that yes there was a god.

I pulled every single .50 cal shot I could find from the shelves and grabbed an ammo belt for what I could carry.

There was a dozen of each clip. Regular, Armor piercing, incendiary, and Explosive. Each clip were for the modified rifle, whoever the NCR were, they had my heartfelt thanks.

I laughed aloud, this was going to be awesome. Jericho looked at me like I went nuts, "Kid, are you alright in the head? Your looking at that rifle like its your newborn baby."

I grinned at Jericho, and I could tell it creeped him out. "Your gun may be cool and scare the shit out of raiders, this beauty will kill them and make their ancestors cringe."

Jericho grinned, "Well then, lets go try it out."

I stashed all the ammo in three different ammo belts on me and the rest in a side pouch. Arkansas was still at the window where we left him, Bittercup was looking out the windows with a pair of binoculars.

"You see any in the open Ark?" She asked.

"They're behind cover." Arkansas replied.

I cleared my throat loudly, "I believe we have an answer to that problem." I stated merrily. The Rifle in my hands was impressively long but couldn't be more than ten pounds. I took Buttercup's position at the window and flicked on the thermal sights for the rifle. The world turned to shades of red blue and orange as I looked down the Barrel. "Target?" I asked.

Behind me Bittercup replied, "First house on the left, directly behind the wrecked blue car."

I spotted the raider, his exposed body parts glowing under the sights of my rifle. I aimed for the center of where his body should be. I pulled the trigger, and was rewarded with a gun shot and a very loud clank as my bullet pierced the car and launched the raider from behind cover into the open.

"One." I stated, mocking Arkansas count.

"Still only one kid."

"Two by the corner of the house!" Bittercup stated.

My gun released two more cracks and parts of the house exploded as the recently slaughtered raiders launched from their hiding spot and splattered against the wall.

"Three."

The contest continued, Bittercup called them out and either me or Arkansas caught them under deadly fire. Occasionally one would be stupid and try to run for it, but then Jericho would catch them.

After fifteen minutes Arkansas and I were nearly tied, Jericho had one kill, I had seventeen, Arkansas had nineteen. According to Arkansas, there was only one left behind cover. Bittercup confirmed it.

"Come on you bastard I muttered," sweeping about with my rifle, "Does anyone see him?" I asked.

"I got nothing." Jericho stated.

"Nope." Confirmed Arkansas.

"Oh Shit! I see him!" Screamed Bittercup, looking into her binoculars.

Shortly after Bittercup spotted him the rest of us did too. The raider was hard not to spot, the man was dressed in bloody power armor that looked like it had bones meshed into it somehow. Beside him was another dozen raiders with assault rifles and Gatling guns. The thing that frightened Bittercup wasn't the raiders.

It was the Six metal armored super mutants standing with the Raiders.

Somehow I felt my life was being fucked by the goddess of Karma. I drew a bead on the heavy armored leader. The man was gesturing and ranting behind his blood stained helmet, and the raiders were taking orders.

"Do we fire? Or wait for them to get organized?" I asked, noting the lack of gunfire.

"To many to snipe. If we do, they will rush us, and we're dead." Arkansas replied.

"I got it!" Jericho exclaimed.

"What?"

"I'll grab the kids downstairs. We can grab the Gatling guns and missile launchers from the Cache and keep them back from the front door. You guys take them down from a distance."

Arkansas and I shared a glance. "Bittercup, you go help him and the guys move what we need downstairs. We can buy you time if you need. When we see the first rocket we'll shoot out the leader and the mutants. That should make the rest break and run scared."

I returned to my window, and aimed for the leader. I really wished I could take the shot. The raiders followed the leaders plans, and took what they could from the dead already there. A few took some sheet metal and wreckage from the walls to make shields. The big green and ugly guys stood there looking ready to maim something, each had some sort of crude weapon in their hands.

I counted each precious minute, checking my rifle and loading in a fresh clip of the Explosive shots.

Seventeen minutes later we saw the signal, two rockets launched from the base of the building, and scattered the raiders with a combined fireball. The Mutants charged, just as two chains of rapid fire arced out of the building and tore into our attackers.

Both Arkansas and I went to work, My shot clipped the leader's helmet. The shot wasn't as effective as I had hoped. However the Explosion from the bullet worked with the rifle's rail-gun like power and launched the man from his feet.

As the lead raider went down, Arkansas kept himself busy crippling the super mutants with limb shots that dropped them to the ground and left them helpless to the spray of bullets and occasional missiles from the front door guards.

My shots were aimed at the raiders behind the shields and the ones with scrap metal armor. The six super mutants were no threat, either crippled or dead on the ground below us. The raiders didn't give up. Unlike the last ones these knew that Arkansas and I were the bigger threats.

They didn't charge the front door, instead they fired wildly at the windows of our floor. Constantly the old man and I had to switch as they picked out where we were. Above the thunder of gunfire we could hear the leader screaming orders to take us out.

The occasional missile barrage with sprays of bullets kept the raiders from getting in range, but the intelligent bastards kept at least one rifle pointed at each window to stop us from getting a shot off. The few times we could shoot, all we managed to get were near hits, or worse near misses.

The bastards were smart, and kept the real threat from killing them.

"Fuck!" I exclaimed as a stray bullet skinned my left arm. "Do we have anything we can launch at them to push them back?" I asked the ex-soldier.

The old man looked at me, reloading his rifle, "Unless you can throw a grenade fifty yards we got nothing."

"So either we wait for them to run low or we find a way to get some explosives to them."

"What do you think Boy," The old man grinned, "Wanna run up to those bastards with a bomb pack?"

I remembered the big town thief, the little twit with the stealth boys. "I got a better plan! Cover me!" I exclaimed and rushed back to the stash of weapons.

I searched grabbing together wires, grenades, and some rifle straps. I meshed them together in a crappy way with some other assorted junk. Soon I had three 'dead man' grenade belts. Each armed with twelve plasma grenades apiece. Pull the wire and toss for a burning inferno.

I rushed to the bottom of the building, using the sounds of the Gatling guns to lead me to the front door.

"Where's sticky?" I yelled, frantically.

The teen in question was reloading a missile launcher, messing with it's controls. Sticky looked at me and the bomb belts I had in my hand. "Oh shit. What are those for?" He asked.

I looked at him with a dead serious look, "Listen we need you to toss these at the bad guys or were dead. They're keeping me and Arkansas from shooting at them. My suit's torn up so you have to do it."

Stick panicked. "Your kidding right? No fucking way!"

"If you don't we're gonna get rushed! You think you can kill a dozen gun loaded raiders before they get here or blow you apart with a bomb or they're own?" I yelled.

The kiid turned from panicked to scared, "I- We can't- "

I cut him off, "We can't. You Can! Take these belts and blast them apart. Use your stealth boys and get to the wall, pull the string to trip the grenades, toss em' and run! That's all!"

The teen looked sullen, but nodded. "I'll do it." He took the bombs, and disappeared from view. I wasted no time and rushed back to the fourth floor windows.

"Boy, what the hell took you so long?" Arkansas called.

"I had to give a kid a pep talk. Get ready for a distraction!"

Less than a minute later I heard an explosion. Both Arkansas and I jumped up, taking our positions and aiming. A second explosion hit, twelve simultaneous plasma blasts tearing chunks out of the defensive wall but it scattered the raiders who didn't break from the first shot.

The leader was in sight again, Arkansas was taking shots at his helmet with his rifle. None of the shots breached but it made for a good distraction.

I spotted Sticky running back, the stealth boys probably failed from all the dust kicked up from the blasts.

I started shooting at the raiders, any spotted were almost instantly downed by the dual sniper fire.

A large blast hit the side of the building and I felt the whole place threaten to come down on top of us. The outside the window, I could see the blossom of a huge fiery blast tear into the building.

"Kid! The bone covered asshole has a nuke launcher!" Arkansas screamed at me.

"What?"

"The guy with bones has a fat man! Its a nuke launcher! The fucker will take down the building if he does that again!"

I pointed my rifle out the window, trying to spot the bloody chrome of his armor, the dust and dirt from the blast had mistakenly given him a smokescreen. I tried to delay a blast by firing random shots, hoping the explosive rounds would stop a second barrage from killing us all.

I heard sticky's voice cry out behind me. "Sypher! The last of the grenades didn't go off!"

I didn't turn, I had seven shots left in the rifle, and one asshole I had to kill before we were all dead. "Where'd you drop it?" I demanded.

"Its dead in the middle of the front gates! I saw the bone guy there and threw it at him!"

"Gotcha!" I aimed my rifle there, and sure enough was our ugly friend.

Mounted on the man's shoulder was an odd piston launcher thing. In it was some sort of projectile that had a nuclear symbol painted on its tip.

It was aiming right for us.

The grenades were at his feet, and I knew damn well that the bomb he had was aiming for us. I fired at the grenades, the silencer in my gun failing and unleashing the thunder of god as the projectile left the barrel.

The rail-gun force of the shot struck the plasma bombs, unleashing a devastating fire the emerald flames covered the bone armor guy before his own ammunition exploded.

Whatever it was he had on his person it was powerful, both Arkansas and I were launched from the windows and slammed into the opposite walls.

The force of the impact knocked us silly, and I swear I could see flames billowing up from the blast zone.

Arkansas and I returned to the windows and shared a laugh.

Despite the near death set up, both of us enjoyed the fight.


	7. Assault on Paradise

The trip to Minefield was an absolute success thanks to Arkansas. The old man probably had the only working vehicle in the wasteland; a U.S. Army Half-track. For those who don't know its a troop carrying truck made to go anywhere on the battlefield and drop off troops and evacuate injured. The scrap heap was old, but well maintained. The .50 caliber Gatling turret strapped to it improved my opinion of it.

Originally it had belonged to Arkansas and his buddies when they journeyed from the west. The old green truck had a picture of a two headed bear spray painted on its sides. The initials 'NCR' were on all sides as well.

The Old man took little convincing to return with us to Megaton. I didn't miss the glance he sent my way when he agreed. The Old man was curious about me, and I wanted to know why.

The Armory took a few hours to load up, the kids from big town helping load made it easier or it would have taken days. Bittercup kept trying to impress me, I Don't know what Sticky was doing (I honestly didn't give a fuck) , Dusty and the rest of the kids kept guard, Jericho did a lot of heavy lifting, and I swear Arkansas was trying to ignore we all existed. We got geared up and returned to Megaton before sundown.

That's when we saw the bad news. Smoke billowed from Megaton, small fires were flowing around the entrance. The whole place looked like it had been under siege since the moment Jericho and I had left.

* * *

><p>Paradise falls was a horrible place. Despite its name, it was hell on earth to too many people. The end of the world converted the place from a colossal shopping mall into the capital wasteland's premiere slaver base.<p>

It was surrounded by cliffs and flatland on all sides. A perfect sniper's point if it wasn't for the ruins of the shopping mall blocking any decent view. Even the front gate had an overhang that prevented anything from being determined from friend or foe.

The biggest problem with this whole scenario was the fact that a lot of my new friends were inside. I needed to get in. It was my fault they were in there and I had to save them. Attacking the Raider's school just pissed them off. They came back. Badder than ever.

The Wasteland trash came at Megaton with reinforcements from Paradise falls. Raiders with real armor and weapons, not the garbage that floated the wastes for two hundred years. They blasted the walls with rockets and grenades, reducing them to open scrap. The town guard made a valiant attempt to defend the place, but in the end it wasn't enough. The raiders rushed the town and took what they wanted, and even grabbed a few of the men and women for slaves. Moira, Leo and Jenny Stahl, and somehow they captured Lucas Simms alive.

Grudgingly I had to admit they were skilled if they got Simms alive. I always figured him the type to bite into his own tongue and bleed to death rather than be taken alive by a raider.

The group settled in at my place, weapons stocked up and passed out to the surviving townspeople who survived. I let the big town brats set up a guard for the town, those who could started patching up the holes in the walls before something big decided to get in and feed.

I tried to convince all of them to stay when I made my plan.

"I can take them from a distance! Their a bunch of fucking raiders!" I stated, patting my rifle. The custom .50 cal rifle was heavy, resting on my back, since arriving back in Megaton I felt the urge to use it to shatter the skulls of every last wasteland raider.

Jericho looked at me like I had lost my mind, I probably had. "Paradise Falls is THE slaver base for the whole fucking wasteland! They ship to The Pitt in exchange for top of the fuckin' line weapons and ammo! Not the wrecks and shite of the pre-war times. The Pitt supplies them with freshly made stuff!" Jericho screamed at me.

"The drunken idiot is right boy. That place is death. The Pitt is a poison spewing factory, but you live twice as long as you do as a Slave at Paradise." Arkansas cut in, pulling the collar of his shirt down to reveal a severe scar across his neck. "I've been trapped there before. The slavers at Paradise killed all my buddies. Tortured most of them to death. I broke the bomb collar they strapped to me, used the explosives to blast open the gate at night."

Arkansas chuckled grimly, his eyes were distant. "I didn't get all of it off though. Some of the C4 in the collar was left in. Left a nasty mark."

Jericho stared at the scar, "Damn old man, that's a nice love mark you got."

"Fuck off booze hound."

"Listen shit kicker-"

"Enough!" I yelled, "We got a dozen of Megaton's best out there en route to a slave camp! We gotta get to them before they're sold off or worse! We need a fucking plan, and a fucking good idea to get them out!"

To my goddamned amazement it was Sticky and Bittercup who approached the three of us with an answer. "Why don't you sneak close, get them scared like there's a ghost or something, and Ark can take them down from long range while Jericho guards him?" Bittercup asked, innocently.

"Yeah, If you want I can loan you guys a few of my stealth boys to use! I keep them in good condition, they last for five minutes a piece!" Sticky added in.

We had a plan, a heavily edited version of Sticky's Idea. We'd take Arkansas' truck to make sure we got to Paradise quickly. Me and Sticky would sneak in, take down as many Raiders on the outside as possible; Arkansas, Bittercup, and Jericho would stick to the cliffs and pick off any guards on the rooftop and the one's me and Sticky missed.

* * *

><p>My wounds from the raiders were still burning and hurt like you would not believe. I felt like a fool.<p>

Dad had spent days on end lecturing me on drugs, why not to use them, how not to use them, and when not to use them. I ignored all three sets of lectures when I took the Psycho and Buffout at the same time, the drugs when mixed in that cocktail could have permanently injured my heart.

I was foolish. Dad's 'improvements' made me harder to kill. Not impossible.

The Vault made me soft. Growing up with android parts and combat surgeries made me arrogant. Having the only bullies break bones punching you will do that.

I was an idiot.

I was arrogant.

I was a fool.

Make no mistake that those three things are the same. Dad's plan was aimed for him to finish. I was plan B, my job was to follow behind, fix anything he did that didn't take, and take over if he failed. Ever since I got out of the vault I felt a growing sense of doubt about the plan, and held a great load of contempt for one major screw up we couldn't cover.

There was no maps of the capital wasteland. Two hundred years of weather and the blast from the great war had removed all the good traces and ruined any and all chances of keeping up with the natural changes. If I was ever going to find my way around, I'd either need a decent guide, a satellite up-link or a cartographer. Considering the way things were, I figured I better get looking for a merchant who didn't want to screw me over and leave me as a pile of super mutant droppings.

* * *

><p>The trip to Paradise was quick, Arkansas' Military truck worked like a charm, getting us to the cliff side in an hour instead of the days on foot. The Slaver base was loud, pre-war music was blasting from the remains of the shopping mall's sound system. The sounds of partying and gunfire echoed in the area. I vaguely recognized Moira's voice singing along with the music blaring.<p>

"At least shes still alive..." I mused out loud, I sounded a little relieved.

Jericho grinned at me, loading a fresh magazine into his cannon of a sniper rifle. "Sounds like you got a little soft spot for Megaton's merchant."

"Keep your dick in your pants boy. We got people to save." Arkansas was grinning to.

I pulled two of my throwing knives out, and strapped five stealth boys onto my left arm. "Okay, now both of you are on my list. Right after every drugged out scumbag in that place."

Over in the corner I noticed Bittercup fidgeting with her assault rifle and looking at me in an unsettling way again. "Hey where's sticky?" I asked her.

She looked around, "I dunno."

We all took a moment to glance around for our missing companion. We could hear him yelping somewhere nearby, "Ow! Fuck! Quit it! OW!"

"Dammit, Sticky."I sighed.

Our friend was near the rocky ridge leading down to the ruined shopping mall. He was being chased by a mole rat of all things. The silenced 10mm pistol he was using was missing every shot, that fact was made worse by the fact that the mole rat was less than two feet in front of him. I glanced at Bittercup who was cradling her face with her hands on obvious shame.

"Is he always that bad of a shot?" I asked, incredulous.

"Hes the best at knives, and never misses with his dart gun. We never let him use regular guns cuz' he can't handle the recoil. Always misses his shot." She explained.

"Sticky! Just use your dart gun!" I yelled at him.

Sticky looked stunned for a moment. "Oh. Yeah." he pulled a weird looking contraption that looked like a crude crossbow made from junk; I recognized a toy car and spray paint can out of the junk. Sticky loaded a dart into the contraption and pulled a trigger on the device. The dart launched out of the gun and pierced the mole rat in its right eye and exited out the back of the skull with extra force. The dart actually stuck itself into the surrounding stone.

I stared at Sticky and his stealthy hand cannon. "What the fuck did you make that from?"

Sticky stared at me for a moment, stuck in thought, "A toy car, some surgical tubing, a paint can, some scrap wood to reinforce the frame, duct tape, lots of wonderglue, and a few radscorpion poison glands."

"What the hell are you doing with radscorpion venom?" Jericho cut in.

"Slows most wasteland monsters down, one dart its like they broke their limbs, two darts or more and they're ready to die." Sticky explained.

"How long does it take to work?" I asked.

"I dunno, minutes if I shoot them in the arm. A minute tops if I shoot them in the chest."

"How the hell did you find this all out?" Jericho asked.

Sticky started searching the inside of his pants, while Bittercup preoccupied herself with burying her face in her hands again. "Found it!" Sticky exclaimed, pulling a worn out stack of papers with crude writing on it. "These are my experiments!"

"What the-"

"Can it." Arkansas stated. "Raiders are up to something." The old man was aiming his rifle at the ruins, peering into his scope with a blank stare.

Bittercup pulled out her binoculars, her pale face getting paler. "Guys, they got a black guy tied up over a pile of wood they're building up. I think they're gonna cook him!"

I took the binoculars from Bittercup, sure enough Lucas Simms was tied naked to a crude wooden rack above a fire pit. The stubborn sheriff was still alive, and was cursing out the raiders with a passion. I gave the man credit, some of the raiders looked like their feelings were hurt.

I turned to my makeshift team, "Do we stick to the plan? Or are we changing things up a bit?"

"Stick to the plan boy. We don't need to rush."

"How do you know that?"

"They don't have enough wood to touch the black man yet. They want him to burn alive from the beginning. They never light up people until night. They want him to suffer."

"Charming."

"Ark, Can you pick them off inside from this far?" Bittercup questioned.

"A few, not enough."

"How many patrols of raiders on the outside?" I asked the old soldier.

"four groups of three, three groups circle the ruins the fourth stands at the entrance."

"This is gonna suck. How long until they notice that their friends guarding the place are dead?"

"They won't notice."

Jericho gave the ancient sniper a bewildered look, "What the hell are you talking about old man? They've gotta notice if all their friends die off!"

Arkansas pulled out a box from his truck. Inside the box was six metal balls, each with the radioactive symbol painted on. The Balls were wired together and had a small console attached to them.

"Old man, what is that?" I asked.

"I wired together six mini-nukes and set them to blow. This whole package will tear that place to bits."

"Oh god! That's a fucking nuke!" Bittercup panicked, hiding behind me.

I looked at the box and grinned. Our chances of getting out alive had just gotten better... or a lot worse, I wasn't entirely sure.

* * *

><p>The part that scared me was I was considering using it.<p> 


	8. Paradise Falls

We debated for half an hour about how we would save our friends.

Our first plan was somewhat suicidal; sticky and I would take out the guards that were circling the raider base while Jericho and Arkansas took out any opportunities. Then once all the outside guards were gone, Sticky and I would activate the stealth-boys and take out as many as we could and cause chaos while Jericho put our nuke pack in a good place.

That idea got shot down when we remembered the bomb had a five minute timer. There was no way a two man team could kill all the raiders in the mall ruins and get out with a dozen injured slaves, even with a three man back up team.

The second plan was for Jericho to attack the front doors with his overpowered rifle while Arkansas and I attacked from the clifftop. While our forward assault occurred, Sticky would use his stealth boys to sneak in over the walls and plant a few explosives and blow a hole in the walls. While the raiders were confused, the nuke pack would be set and Bittercup and I would rush in and raise hell.

Between the multiple holes in their walls, the attack at the gates, and me raising hell then hopefully there would be a chance to get our Megaton friends free.

The only hitch in plan B was Lucas Simms. He was tied to the post in the middle of the ruins, and butt naked. It would be very difficult to get him free and out of the cross fire.

Our final idea was a cross between plan A and Plan B. I took the eighteen frag grenades we had and tied them together in groups of four. Arkansas rigged them together with Egg timers he had stashed in his beat up NCR truck.

We had four pseudo-bomb packs with two grenades left over. I kept the remaining grenades for myself. The next step was difficult. The raiders were semi-smart. They had three groups of raiders each in a three man team. Each raider team had two guys with rifles, then one guy with either a flamethrower or, in the case of the third team, a rocket launcher.

Sticky and I took out each team, rushing them under the cover of stealth boy. From the cliff Arkansas took out the heavy weapon guy each time using my old rifle. Each kill was swiftly hidden up against the walls of the raider base, and a bomb pack left on the remains. I felt a minor morbid since of humor using the dead raiders to hide our bomb present. Also, we took the rocket launcher.

Even without the pressing attack on a fort I could think of plenty of uses for a racket launcher and three spare missiles in the capital wasteland.

We returned to our little camp, where I unloaded the launcher on Bittercup. She took the weapon with a shy smile that scared the hell out of me.

With the bomb packs and patrol guards dead, all we could do was take position and wait. Bittercup set up the launcher so it aimed at the open areas of the base. When the party started she would fire a few rounds at random, hopefully send them into a frenzy.

Jericho was getting into position. I was hoping his oversized assault rifle would be able to put up a decent distraction.

"We got a minute left boy." Arkansas interrupted, with a pre-war pocket watch in his hand. "Get your sights ready."

We prepared and waited. True to Arkansas timing, the bombs went off less than a minute later, a staccato of explosions erupting from the sides of the raider base. Jericho unleashed a rain of burning lead upon the front gate raiders while Bittercup unloaded the first of her rockets at the base. Arkansas fired a rhythm of shots from my old rifle, each cough of the gun undoubtedly marking the end of a raider's life.

Sticky grabbed the nuclear pack, and I rushed forward, rifle prepped in my hands. As we gained closer I would pause for barely a second to shoot any raider that emerged near our target entrance.

The plan was working, between the initial blast and the rapid death of their fellow raiders the inside was degrading into chaos quickly. I could hear the shouts of one particularly pissed off raider screaming for them to get back into order and fight back. I pulled the pin on one of my grenades and tossed in as hard as I could towards the sound of the yelling leader.

I was rewarded with a terrified scream of pain and a female screaming "Eulogy!" at the top of her voice. I grinned. Less leaders meant less chance of them organizing in time to stop us. As if they could.

Another rocket strike from Bittercup hit at the same time as sticky and I hit the ruined walls. A raider in car tire armor rushed out only to receive one of Sticky's darts to the head. "You remember your part right?" I asked him. The kid nodded nervously. "Do not hit the switch unless we are clear or dead." He nodded again and flipped the switch on his stealth boy, disappearing from my sight.

I counted to fifteen, grabbed a grenade, counted to fifteen again and tossed the pineapple. I strapped my rifle and prepared for a close quarters slaughter. When the blast went off I rushed in, a dagger and my shock-sword in hand. I kicked the nearest raider in the face, beheaded the one beside him and thrust my dagger into the chest of the first. I grabbed an assault rifle from a corpse nearby and unleashed a stream of lead in the backs of a group heading for the gates. I kept firing until the clip ran dry, before retrieving my knife.

The next group of raiders was prepared for me, as I rushed them two opened fire, grazing me a few times. I was lucky they were a bad shot or this would have sucked. I rushed them, screaming like a devil. The furthest back dropped from Arkansas sniper fire, the front fell to me and my gore covered blades.

The raiders were losing moral fast, they're numbers dropping faster. Bittercup's third missile hit, the signal that I needed to hurry up and free the slaves. I ran for the back, cutting down another half dozen of the bastards along the way. According to Arkansas the slave pens were in the very back, built into the remains of the restrooms.

The cage locks were easy to clear, the locks and chain link fence no match for the plasma-like edge on my sword. In less than a minute the captured folk of Megaton and other wasteland towns were free. Except for two, Lucas Simms was still in the middle of our firefight, naked and tied to the post. After a quick headcount I realized I couldn't see Moira anywhere either. I asked one of the closest slaves, a young girl that looked in her teens. Her answer annoyied me to no end. "Mr. Eulogy took her, he always takes the new girls to break them..." She shuddered, and I hopped my grenade from earlier only clipped them.

I took my rifle off my back, and removed the silencer from it, and fired five shots into the air, evenly spaced. The signal I had freed the slaves. We gathered the nearest weapons, and headed for the closest hole in the walls. A building we passed had a sign that stated, "Eulogy's Pad", I told the freed slaves to head for the cliffs. "Sticky! Front and fuckin center! We got a change in plans."

The kid rushed me, fading into view, "What now? Do we blow the bomb?"

I shook my head no."Set the bomb now, then get Simms and get him the fuck out of here."

Sticky looked at me, "What about you?"

"The head honcho took Moira to break her, I'm gonna get her back and kill him if I haven't already."

"Good luck boss."

I entered the building, and found it decorated with old Christmas lights, gaudy silk curtains and other fashion disasters that would be noticeable by even the worst fashion sense.

In the middle of his fashion disaster stood a man in what I swear to god was a pre-war red leather pimp suit. "Where the fuck are you bitch!" He yelled. I grinned, he hadn't noticed me yet. I sheathed my blades, and loaded my rifle with a fresh clip. The click of the rounds locking in alerted him to the fact I was aiming at him with my very rifle. He glared at me, "Who the fuck are you?" He demanded. I noticed blood dripping from his limp left arm. I grinned, it seemed my grenade hit him after all.

"Where is Moira?" I asked.

"The bitch is hiding from me! Little slut needs to be put in her place."

I shot him in the left foot, the fifty caliber bullet obliterating what was in its path. "Moira, You here?" I called out.

"I'm here!" She called from behind a bar. Eulogy pulled a 10mm SMG and fired at the bar, Moira screamed and I unloaded another round, cutting off the bastard's arm at the elbow.

"He's down Moira, we need to get out of here." I called. Eulogy was spitting curses, using his limp hand in a vain attempt to stem the flow of blood.

"Why?"

"Arkansas rigged six mini-nukes to blow and the timer is counting down."

"Who's Arkansas?"

"No time for questions dammit! We gotta run!"

Moira and I booked it,running out of the building, running past the raiders, running from death itself.

Bittercup's final missile struck, hitting the path behind us mere feet away.

We were halfway up the cliffs when the blast erupted from what was once Paradise Falls. The force of the six blasts simultaneously firing removed the remaining slavers from the planet's surface.

We finished our climb after a moments rest, and celebrated our victory while walking back to a greatful megaton.

As we walked to our home, I looked back and wondered, how much longer could I fool myself that I was still human.


End file.
